By Kelsey Landon
The jury trial resumed in Department 10 of Yolo County Superior Court on Tuesday, January 9, 2018, for Ted Tyler, a Sacramento man charged with several counts of sexual abuse of a minor under the age of fourteen.
The charges Mr. Tyler is facing are on several counts—oral copulation with a minor under the age of fourteen, committing a lewd and lascivious act with a minor under fourteen, and contacting a minor for sex.
Tyler was charged with these crimes after his wife notified the authorities in February of 2017.
Tyler’s wife suspected Tyler of committing sexual acts with one of her children, one of Tyler’s stepchildren.
The last witness to testify on Monday was called back on Tuesday to conclude his testimony, giving statements about his observations of the defendant’s interactions with the siblings of the alleged victim in question.
The final witness called to the stand was the personal legal assistant in charge of getting the witness statements.
The defense counsel asked if there had been any sort of threat by the wife toward Tyler in regard to the defendant’s infidelity. The witness replied that she did not know of any such threat.
The witness was then dismissed, and witness testimony was concluded.
Judge Maguire then read the jury their instructions, after which closing arguments began.
The People began their closing argument by stating what they believed to be the facts of this case: that Tyler had been convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in 2001; in July of 2015 Tyler married the victim’s mother and had participated in extra-marital affairs; and after his wife and her children moved into a home with Tyler, he forced the victim into oral copulation and later sexual intercourse.
The People’s counsel described the recovered texts from Tyler’s phone to another woman asking her for sex—highlighting his inability to control his urges and how this would explain his relationship with his stepdaughter.
As for why the victim and her mother did not initially inform authorities of everything that happened, the People’s counsel argued that the victim was scared and hurt.
Also, the defendant’s response to being accused of having molested a child was not incredulous like one would expect of someone who is innocent, rather it was more like he had been 
caught in an affair.
The alleged victim’s phone had disappeared along with one of the defendant’s two phones the same night he fled after authorities were called.
The People’s counsel then went through the counts with which Tyler is charged, claiming it to be absurd that any child would lie about these acts, or any mother would risk losing her children over falsely accusing her husband of them.
As for the People’s counterargument to the claim that the victim might have been trying to hurt her mother as part of their tumultuous relationship, the People went over statements the victim made saying she was afraid of ruining her mother’s marriage.
The prosecution concluded by stating that the victim’s testimony was consistent with Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome, described by the expert witness that was brought in earlier during the trial.
The defense counsel began their argument by highlighting the credibility and reliability of the statements used as evidence.
The defense described the victim’s confusion about the timeline of events that happened and compared it to the victim’s extremely accurate memory of her own birthday party—using this comparison to support her theory that if these acts had really happened to the victim, she would remember them just as clearly.
The defense went on to argue that the victim’s mother had been more concerned about the defendant’s extramarital affairs than the abuse of her daughter. The defense claimed that these were the grounds on which the mother wanted to see the defendant go to jail, not because she believed abuse had actually occurred.
As far as the defendant’s previous conviction goes, the defense argued that that was not a case of child abuse because both the victim and the defendant had been the same age, and, in that case, the defendant had plead guilty.
The two cases were very different according to the defense’s argument, and therefore the prior case was not relevant to the instant case.
The trial concluded with the People’s rebuttal.
The People’s counsel argued that the inconsistencies in the victim’s memory were due to the fact that she is a child and her memory is not perfectly formed, and memory is not infallible in anyone.
The prosecution also argued that the mother knew that her children would be taken away if she called authorities, but did so anyway because she believed her daughter had been molested.
The People argued that the mother of the victim would not risk having her children taken away just to get revenge against the defendant.
As far as the character witness testimony goes, the People claimed that just because the defendant did not molest every child he came in contact with does not mean he was not capable of molesting one.
The People concluded their closing argument by stating that the picture of male genitalia, found on the victim’s phone, was sent to her from someone other than the defendant, and is possibly just another example of sexual harassment of which she had been a victim.
The jury was then sent to deliberate.
