Lawyer accused of sex with teen acquitted on all charges, Fresno County jury decides
Lawyer Jennifer Walters, who prosecutors allege had a four-year sexual relationship with a minor, was acquitted Wednesday by a Fresno County jury of 15 counts of sex crimes.
The 42-year-old Walters, a divorced mother of two, began to sob as the court clerk read the jury’s verdict. The defendant would have faced up to 24 years in prison if she was found guilty.
“Justice was served,” said one of Walters’s supporters.
Family members of the teenager became emotionally upset after the clerk finished reading the last not guilty verdict. “How did you not see it?” shouted the teenager’s mother, as she was led out of the courtroom.
Several of the jurors looked stunned as they could hear her cries from the hallway.
During the two week trial, Walters and her lawyer Mark Broughton were able to convince the five-women, seven-man, jury that the teenager concocted the whole story of having a relationship with Walters, a woman 22 years older than him.
Broughton suggested the teenager made up the illicit relationship after he allegedly forcibly raped and sodomized Walters in July 2019.
The jury did not appear to be swayed by the teenager’s testimony and the thousands of instant messages between Walters and the teenager, who was a friend of her sons.
The instant messages, some that were sexually explicit, included emojis of hearts, hugs and even a bitmoji that Walters created of herself and the teenager.
Prosecutor Kaitlin Drake made a point of bringing up the instant messages several times as proof that this was not a normal relationship, but a boyfriend, girlfriend type of relationship that turned sexual. Investigators also found biological fluids from the teenager and Walters discovered on a futon in her office.
The teenager testified that one of his first sexual experiences happened with Walters when he was just 13 years old and continued until he was 17.
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 2:09 PM.
