BY MIKE FUHRMAN

A Mooresville man who is charged with raping a female classmate nearly six years ago on the campus of Mooresville High School — when he was 16 and his accuser was 14 — claims they had consensual sex.

Testimony in the trial of Jericho Montrell Neal, 22, began Tuesday morning in Iredell County Superior Court following opening statements.

Assistant District Attorney Regina Mahoney told the jury that the evidence will prove that Neal is guilty of second-degree forcible rape. Witness testimony, Mahoney said during her opening statement, will show that Neal pushed the accuser to her knees and forced himself on her after they met in a stairwell in the Magnolia Building during class on the afternoon of March 6, 2018.

“When she said, ‘No! Stop!,’ he didn’t,” the prosecutor told the jury. “She’s going to tell you it lasted a few minutes but it felt like forever.”

The teen told her mother about the assault the next day and was examined at Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, Mahoney said. Neal was arrested six months later following an investigation by the Mooresville Police Department.

During his opening statement, defense attorney Ken Darty offered a different version of the events of the day of the alleged sexual assault. According to Darty, Neal and his accuser were classmates and had forged a relationship by communicating through an online app over several months.

The accuser, who is white, did not have a cell phone and was not allowed to communicate with Neal, who is Black, because her mother did not approve of inter-racial relationships, Darty told the jury.

On the morning of March 6, 2018, Neal and his accuser met in the Magnolia Building before school and had consensual sex, Darty told the jury.

The defense attorney told the jury it was “inconceivable” that his client had a sexual encounter with his accuser in the stairwell at 2 p.m. — some 15 minutes before school let out for the day.

A jury of six men and six women — and two male alternates — was empaneled late Tuesday morning.

After opening statements, Mahoney called the state’s first witness, Mooresville police Cpl. Craig Buda, to the stand.

Buda, a 26-year veteran of the MPD who has worked as the resource officer at Mooresville High since 2009, testified primarily about a security video that was introduced as evidence by the assistant district attorney.

The video shows the accuser walking down the hall on the first floor of the Magnolia Building to an area leading to a rear stairwell at 2:01 p.m. on March 6, 1018. About a minute later Neal walks down the same hallway and enters the same area. The video also shows several other students in the same hallway. There is no audio.

Less than three minutes after the accuser and Neal entered the stairwell, the video shows Neal walking down the hallway away from the stairwell. There is no video of the accuser leaving the area.

There were no security cameras in the stairwell, according to Cpl. Buda.

The prosecutor also introduced four photos into evidence showing the doorway leading to the stairwell, the steps leading upstairs and the area next to the steps. Meanwhile, the defense attorney showed the jury a photo of a piano stored under the stairwell in question.

Superior Court Judge R. Stuart Albright recessed the trial for the day around 12:30 p.m., citing the severe weather forecast for the area.

Testimony is scheduled to resume Wednesday morning.

Related

♦ Jury selection begins in trial of former Mooresville High School student accused of on-campus rape