Columbus jury acquits man accused of child molestation after ‘graphic’ video came to light
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A Columbus jury has acquitted a man who was charged with child molestation after police saw cell-phone video of a naked child touching a man’s genitals.
After four days of testimony, the jury deliberated less than two hours Thursday before finding Mahlon Jacobs Dyer not guilty of child molestation and the sexual exploitation of children, said defense attorney Michael Garner.
Dyer, 34, still faces felony drug charges, said District Attorney Mark Jones, who prosecuted the molestation case.
“We respect the jury’s decision, and will get him on the next one,” Jones said of the verdict and the other pending charges.
Dyer was 30 years old in April 2018 when police arrested him based on a video showing a 2-year-old boy playing with a man’s genitals. Investigators got the recording from a technician who had been repairing an old cell-phone when he saw the video and consulted a friend, who recommended giving it to the police.
Detective Tom Shelton checked the phone and found about a half-minute video showing a naked child in a bed with a naked man. He tracked the phone to a woman who said she recorded the video, and identified Dyer as the adult in it, Shelton testified during Dyer’s preliminary hearing April 9, 2018, in Columbus Recorder’s Court.
The video, which did not show the man’s face, was recorded in 2016 and stored digitally where it could be retrieved later. It was downloaded to the phone in September 2017, and discovered when the phone was taken to be repaired, Shelton said.
The child’s mother, who shot the video, also was arrested on charges of child molestation and child sexual exploitation, according to police records.
She is in prison in Alabama on other charges, said Garner, who does not expect her to be tried in the Columbus case.
The trial
Asked what made the difference in the case, when Dyer went to trial, Garner said, “The difference is he didn’t do anything.”
Garner acknowledged the recording was “a horrible, graphic video, if you look at it without any explanation.”
But the video was taken out of context, the attorney said: The little boy “jumps on everybody all the time, and hugs everybody.” Witnesses who knew the child said he often took his clothes off, Garner added.
Garner said Dyer had just done heroin and had sex with the child’s mother in the bathroom, and was lying on the bed when the child came into the room.
“So (the child) comes flying in there, and dives on (Dyer), and the mother, who’s got her cell phone out, she thinks it’s funny, so she’s taking pictures of it, and that’s how the video got to be,” Garner said. “On the video, the defendant doesn’t do anything. The kid does it. And the defendant, after he realizes what’s going on, kind of pushes the kid off.”
Jones said the video was sufficient evidence to take the case to trial:
“There’s no way we could dismiss this or minimize it,” the district attorney said, adding, “If someone’s accused of child molestation, the jury may forgive him, God may forgive him, but I will always hold him accountable.”