Child rape case jury unable to reach verdict

The young boy pressed a napkin to his eye, shielding his face from the jury as he testified about rapes he allegedly suffered a few years ago at the hands of Darryl Scott, a former football player at O. Perry Walker High School and Southern University.

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With each nagging question, his gaze grew dimmer. His eyelids sank. By the end he hardly spoke.

"When that happened, how did it make you feel?" Orleans Parish prosecutor Brigid Collins asked him.

"I don't know," he mumbled.

"Did it make you feel happy?" Collins asked. The boy, now 7, just shook his head.

Scott, 20, later took the stand to deny ever speaking with, much less raping the boy, who would sometimes sleep over at the Comet Street house where Scott had lived with his mother.

After three days, the jury found no clear answer. Jurors spent seven hours deliberating, often shouting, behind closed doors before hanging Thursday night over a charge of aggravated rape against Scott.

The emotional three-day trial showed some of the challenges in trying cases in which children report sexual abuse only later, and often reluctantly.

Scott, now 20, still faces a possible life prison sentence for what prosecutor Matt Bourque described as "one of the most heinous crimes in the book." Prosecutors plan to retry the case in September.

Authorities said Scott raped the boy on at least two occasions between Jan. 1, 2008, and May 31, 2009. In one case, the boy reported that Scott's mother caught Scott in the act and whipped him, but told the boy to keep his mouth shut.

Police arrested Scott almost a year ago near Atlanta, where he had been living and working in a warehouse. He had won a football scholarship to Southern University but dropped out after his freshman year when academic troubles forced him off the field, he testified. He has remained in jail since his arrest.

The Times-Picayune does not identify alleged rape victims.

During the three-day trial, the jury of four women and eight men watched a stirring video of an interview in which the boy recounted the sexual attacks and his physical reaction to it. Scott "did something that was gay," the boy reported. "It hurt and it burned."

The boy's mother had questioned him following an incident at school, and the boy volunteered Scott's name, said Collins.

But he shrank in the courtroom, where Judge Robin Pittman locked the door to limit commotion during his testimony. He mostly nodded, shook his head or said "I don't know" to basic questions.

Later, Scott's mother denied whipping her son and disputed the time frame for the alleged rapes. She said she had not seen the boy since 2007.

Said Scott: "I kind of barely seen him around, because I never was at home most of the time."

Scott's mother also said that during the summer of 2008, Scott went off to football camp in Baton Rouge and returned rarely -- just for a few weekends. Prosecutors, however, played a jail telephone recording of Scott and his mother discussing his case, in which she blurts, "Yeah, but you came home every weekend."

It wasn't enough of a discrepancy for the jury, which seemed concerned over the range of dates in the allegations in a question they asked the judge during deliberations. In the end, eight of the 12 jurors leaned toward acquittal, according to defense attorney John Fuller.

During closing arguments, Collins tried to temper the jury's view of the boy's struggles on the stand.

"Imagine how a 7-year-old feels having to tell you about the days that man raped you," she said.

But Fuller suggested that the boy he had been led along to make a "fantastical" allegation against Scott.

The boy will likely be called to testify at a new trial.

"It doesn't matter who the victim is in a rape case. They are difficult cases because of the emotions. It's always going to be hard," said Christopher Bowman, an assistant district attorney and spokesman for District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro. "That's why we want to try it again. Because we don't want to have to deal with that same position."

John Simerman can be reached at or 504.826.3330.