Charges changed in sex case

Erica D. Johnson

Thursday, Dec. 5, 2002 | 11:05 a.m.

Prosecutors in the case of a Metro Police officer accused of sexually assaulting a Henderson teen have changed the charges against the man to include additional allegations of abuse between 1997 and 1998.

Jason Woodard faces 20 charges that include lewdness with a child under the age of 14 and sexual assault with a minor under the age of 16 for three separate periods between 1996 and 1999.

The charges point to separate allegations of sexual abuse between 1996 and 1998, when the girl was 13 years old, and between 1997 and 1998, when the girl was 14 years old, Deputy District Attorney Jim Sweetin said. Woodard also faces charges alleged to have taken place in 1999, when the girl was 15 years old.

Sweetin changed four of the initial sexual assault charges from the period of 1996 to 1997, as initially alleged, to the period from 1997 to 1998. The allegations of the sexual acts remain the same, he said.

Defense attorney Richard Schonfeld, during a hearing Wednesday before District Judge Donald Mosley, fought unsuccessfully to prevent the changes.

The Metro officer of four years was arrested in February after the girl alleged he had been sexually assaulting her from the time she was 13 until she was 16.

Woodard faces a five- to 20-year sentence or a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 20 years. He was not present at the hearing.

Sweetin said he made the changes because of typographical errors in the initial indictment.

But the changes in the time periods of the charges causes the indictment to be inconsistent with the testimony presented to the grand jury, Schonfeld said.

He said if the grand jury had seen the time changes, they might have come to a different conclusion.

"You've now changed the time period without having the grand jury get information in that light," he told Mosley. "So it's now difficult to determine what counts reflect what testimony or what part of the testimony reflects the amended counts."