Carney Acquitted of 4 Molestation Charges

In an extraordinary repudiation of the children who accused Kevin Wright Carney of molestation, a jury Thursday found the former Palmdale councilman not guilty of four charges and deadlocked, 11 to 1 in favor of acquittal, on all remaining counts.

Carney, 49, a former sheriff’s deputy who once supervised the investigation of child-abuse cases, looked tired and smiled weakly outside the courtroom.

“No one won here today. There are no winners,” said Carney, surrounded by his wife, brother, two sons, daughter and son-in-law. “It’s been a very, very long year.”

Carney’s lawyer, Milton Grimes, said: “I hope this tells the public and the district attorney’s office to thoroughly investigate before they file charges.”

Many in Carney’s hometown had closely followed the three-week trial, and several said they were both shocked and relieved by the jury’s conclusions.

“We’re a family-oriented community here in the Antelope Valley, and the trial put the entire community into a negative spotlight for one full year,” said Bill Olenick, president of the Antelope Valley Union High School District Board of Directors, where Carney served for four years prior to his election to the Palmdale City Council.

Olenick said he is hopeful the jury’s overwhelming support for acquittal will persuade prosecutors to dismiss the charges. “It’s a relief that it appears to be over, and it’s time for people to move on,” he said.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant declared a mistrial on the remaining 12 counts, which range from lewd acts to unlawful intercourse.

Deputy Dist. Attys. Robert Dver and Steve Katz declined comment. A decision on whether prosecutors would retry the case will be made in the next few days, said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

The case against Carney came down to the accusers’ credibility, and jurors said Thursday that only one of them believed the girls.

During the three-week trial, four girls testified that Carney molested them.

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Jurors acquitted Carney of lewd acts involving a girl, now 11, who lived in Carney’s Palmdale neighborhood and testified that he improperly touched her when she went to his house.

They also found him not guilty of molesting another girl, now a teenager, who alleged that Carney improperly touched her after she climbed into his sleeping bag during a camping trip.

The jury deadlocked on lewd-act charges involving another neighbor girl, now 10, as well as the most serious allegations, involving a girl who is now 15. That girl, who described Carney as a father figure, testified that he molested her repeatedly over an eight-year-period and raped her in his truck last October.

That girl “didn’t know how she got raped,” said juror Barbara Brown, a 54-year-old network operations technician who lives in Ladera Heights. “She couldn’t remember if he was on top or on the side.”

The 15-year-old girl suffered physical injuries that prosecutors argued had been caused by the assault. But jurors said they believed a teenage boy, who testified that he had sexual relations with the girl a few days before the alleged rape, was the person who caused the injuries.

Several jurors said they believed Carney, who testified on his own behalf that nothing untoward had occurred between him and the girls.

“He gave a consistent story,” said the jury foreman, Andre Khachatourians, a 41-year-old engineer from La Crescenta.

“We didn’t believe the prosecution witnesses at all,” said Javier Franco, a 30-year-old UPS driver from Montebello.

The one dissenting juror, 33-year-old Athena Blakely, said the “innocent look in [the children’s] eyes” and their testimony convinced her that Carney is guilty of molesting two of the girls. She also believed that the fibers from Carney’s truck found in one girl’s pants corroborated the rape allegation.

“Like O.J. [Simpson], if you’ve got money and you get a good lawyer, you get off,” Blakely said.

Olenick said the case “has been very difficult for all of us up here as a community.”

Olenick said discussion throughout the community focused on the trial of the former sheriff’s sergeant.

“It’s become a question of how do you trust individuals running for public office? You try to look for assurances that the people you elect have a law enforcement background, because you tend to trust that. But now, I just don’t know what to think,” he said.

Frank Visco, founder of the Antelope Valley Republican Assembly, which endorsed Carney’s bids for office, said the trial’s outcome “is a surprise, to a certain degree.” But he said he is concerned there may be a new trial.

“When there is no conclusion to a matter and it continues to drag on and on, there is an impact to both sides, the families of the victims and the family of the accused,” Visco said. “And it’s hard on the community when it goes on and on. We don’t want to have this sort of stuff continuing in the community. A conclusion must be forthcoming.”

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Michele Lejeune, a longtime Carney supporter and his former campaign treasurer, applauded the jury’s action.

“I’ve been hoping from the very beginning [for acquittal], and I’m thrilled,” she said. “I am feeling a huge sigh of relief for his family and for his friends and for everyone who has been praying for and supporting him.”

Lejeune said she hopes that a new trial will not be held, but that if it is, “I hope that the jury finds in his favor again. I’m very relieved at this point, and I’m very hopeful for Kevin and his family that everything should work out because I believe in him and I believe in his innocence.”

Some residents living near the Carney home expressed a different opinion.

“My neighbors and I all believe that he is guilty,” Trish Corrigan said Thursday. “All of the neighbors I have spoken with are shocked that he wasn’t found guilty on the majority of the charges. We feel very uncomfortable with the situation and we’re afraid for the kids in our community.

“I believe they should retry him because I will not feel comfortable in my neighborhood until I know for sure, totally know for sure about a crime this serious where children are involved,” Corrigan said.