A former student has been acquitted of charges that he sexually assaulted another student and withheld and destroyed evidence during an investigation related to an incident at a house two blocks from campus in the fall of 2014.
Jacob Windsor, who at the time of the incident was a junior biology major from Midlothian, was found not guilty by a Taylor County jury on Aug. 13, 2019, on two counts of sexual assault and two counts of tampering with evidence. The verdict was decided after a six-day trial in the 104th District Court during which Windsor, his accuser and several other former ACU students testified
The Optimist does not report the names of individuals who bring accusations of sexual assault.
Windsor was first indicted by a Taylor County grand jury on three counts of sexual assault, stemming from the party that took place at his residence in the 500 block of EN 23rd Street on Aug. 30, 2014. Windsor’s first attorney, Kenneth G. Leggett, spoke on his behalf at the time and emphasized that an indictment is not a finding of guilt. An indictment indicates only that a grand jury found enough evidence exists to send the case to trial.
Windsor left the university and eventually enrolled in Texas Tech University. The case proceeded through the system for several years, and trial dates were set and postponed several times.
In the weeks before the case was set to go to trial in the fall of 2017, Leggett delivered the accuser’s cell phone to police, indicating it had been misplaced in his office, and the case was postponed once more, said Arimy Beasley, Taylor County assistant district attorney. Beasley said the phone was not in a case, the SIM card had been removed and the tray that holds the SIM card was broken. The phone’s data had been wiped.
Windsor was re-indicted in January of 2018 with two added counts of tampering with evidence. After Windsor’s re-indictment, Leggett was replaced by Abilene attorney Jeff Propst. Propst did not respond to an interview request.
The first count claimed Windsor intentionally and knowingly committed sexual assault against the victim without the victim’s consent and intentionally impaired the victim’s control by administering an unknown substance without the victim’s knowledge. The second count stated the assault took place while the victim was unaware sexual assault was occurring.
The third count alleged Windsor intentionally and knowingly destroyed or concealed the victim’s clothing, intending to impair its availability as evidence in the ongoing investigation. The fourth count alleged Windsor intentionally and knowingly, either himself or through another person, destroyed or concealed the victim’s phone and phone data to impair its legibility as evidence in the ongoing investigation.
