Doty
JENNINGS COUNTY — The attorney representing a 15-year-old Jennings County teen accused of raping a special needs student on a school bus has asked a judge to dismiss the criminal case, citing what he describes as a lack of evidence.
Attorney Bradley Kage has asked the judge to dismiss 11 felony counts and one misdemeanor charge against Landon Doty, 15, North Vernon, who was arrested in June, according to court filings in Jennings Circuit Court.
Doty has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges, including four felony counts of rape, two felony counts of child molesting, four felony counts of sexual battery, one count of criminal confinement and one misdemeanor count of public indecency.
Earlier this month, Jennings Circuit Court Judge Murielle Bright granted a request to postpone Doty’s trial, which was scheduled for Oct. 20, and has not set a new trial date.
In a motion to dismiss filed last week, Kage states that the bus driver and monitor on board the bus where the incident allegedly took place testified in depositions last month that “they did not see any sexual acts between the defendant and the alleged victim and that they saw nothing alarming.”
Additionally, Kage states in the motion that the videotapes taken from cameras on board the bus “do not show the defendant committing any of the charged acts,” the motion states.
“The state assumes that they show crimes were committed,” according to the motion. “…(T)he defendant respectfully requests that the court dismiss the information and the counts against him and for all other relief proper in the premises.”
In June, Doty was booked into the Jennings County Jail after a magistrate judge ordered the teenager to be tried as an adult, citing “heinous” conduct and a “repetitive pattern of delinquent acts” that allegedly took place “over a period of several weeks,” according to court records.
This story will be updated
