Larry S. Birmingham, 44, of Pensacola had been charged with four counts of gross sexual assault in 2005 — two years after the assaults were reported and police first interviewed the girl.
 
The assaults were alleged to have occurred in 2000 when the girl was 11 years old, according to Mary Kellett, assistant district attorney.
 
In 2003, the girl told a family member about the alleged assaults at which point the Maine State Police interviewed her, Kellett said.
 
No charges were filed at that point.
 
Two years later, in 2005, police interviewed the girl again, at which point the District Attorney’s Office brought charges against Birmingham.
 
“The delay was based on the fact that the victim was very limited,” said Kellett. Kellett described the girl as “mildly retarded.”
 
The girl did not change her story, Kellett said.
 
Credibility was at the heart of the case.
 
Both Birmingham and the girl testified.
 
The girl could not recall details about the alleged assaults or the number of times she had been assaulted.
 
She frequently gave one-word replies during the testimony or said, “I don’t know.”
 
The assaults allegedly occurred when the girl visited her mother and Birmingham on weekends.
 
The defense tried to show the difficult relationship between Birmingham and his stepdaughter.
 
“How were visits?” asked defense attorney Jeffrey Toothaker.
 
“Walking on eggshells,” Birmingham said.
 
“If I did something, [she’d say] ‘I’m telling my daddy,’” said Birmingham.
 
“Nothing happened,” said Birmingham.
 
Toothaker told the jury in his closing remarks that the police officer had asked the girl “leading questions.”
 
“You don’t want the source of the statement to be your own words,” Toothaker said. “She can’t even tell the tale.”
 
“He [Birmingham] told us, ‘I didn’t do this,’” Toothaker said. “It’s a credibility case.”
 
Kellett advised the jury that the legislature took away the statute of limitations when a sex crime victim is under age 16.
 
“They did that because very often victims don’t report until they feel safe enough or mature enough to say what happened,” Kellett said in her closing statement. The officer did not ask leading questions but asked “some clarifying questions.”
 
Both Toothaker and Kellett said after the verdict that sexual abuse cases are always “tough.”