A bellman at the Ritz Carlton, Grand Cayman has been cleared of seven counts of indecently assaulting a 15-year-old girl who was staying at the hotel with her parents.
Iyilla Delmar Spence, 40, admitted to a sexual liaison with the teenager, but said he did not realize she was under the age of consent and did not force himself on her, as she claimed.
A jury of five men and two women took three hours to find him not guilty on all counts.
The judge had told the jury the key questions to decide were if the girl had informed Spence she was 15 and if she was a “willing partner in sexual activity.”
The girl had claimed she was first sexually assaulted by the bellman on a stairwell during a personal tour of the hotel when the family visited Grand Cayman in March last year.
The following day, she claimed he engineered a meeting in the hotel corridor on the pretext of bringing a package to the family’s hotel room, before accompanying her back to the room and sexually assaulting her again.
She claims she told him exactly how old she was and was clear that she was not consenting to his advances. She told her parents about the incident and the police were informed.
Mr. Spence initially denied anything had happened between him and the girl, the jury was told.
In a second interview, after police obtained DNA evidence and CCTV footage, he acknowledged that there had been intimate relations between him and the teenager. He said he had lied about it because he feared he would lose his job.
Mr. Spence gave a very different account of the encounters between himself and the guest. Summing up the evidence Friday morning, Judge Timothy Owen said the bellman had characterized their conversations during the tour of the hotel as “mutually flirtatious” and acknowledged that they had hugged and kissed on the stairwell, but claimed the contact had stopped there.
On the second occasion, he claimed she invited him back to her room and initiated the sexual encounter that occurred.
“He described her taking the initiative, coming out of the bathroom naked to the waist. He said his heart was racing and what followed was an intimate sexual encounter..” Justice Owen said.
Mr. Spence insisted that the girl did not tell him at any point that she was only 15 and he had believed she was older. The teenager had claimed that she had told him her age and talked to him about her anxiety about going into 10th grade at high school.
“It is not in dispute that there was intimate physical contact on both days,” Justice Owens told the jury in his directions.
He urged them to put aside any distaste toward the defendant over the fact that he “had a sexual encounter with a girl who was clearly many years younger than him.”
He said, “This is a court of law, not a court of morals. You must consider the evidence fairly and dispassionately.”
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