James Amelio was convicted of sexual battery in 2017 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. On Wednesday, after a two-day retrial, he was a free man — a new jury found him not guilty of attacking a drunk woman in the “Lucky Street” parking garage at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino near Hollywood.
The charges were originally filed in 2015 after the woman told investigators she had no memory of her sexual encounter with Amelio. Security camera footage showed the two kissing near an elevator before lying beneath him, apparently unresponsive, as he fondled her. A security guard separated the pair.
Amelio, 33, was tried and convicted in the summer of 2017. But last year, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that the jury was wrongly told it could consider the woman’s mental incapacity when determining whether she gave consent.
The issue turned out to be pivotal — at the 2017 trial, there was no testimony about whether the woman had any drug in her system other than alcohol. The woman said she had passed out and had no memory of what happened.
During the retrial, “we were able to show that they drew her blood and there was nothing suggesting there was anything found in the blood,” said Assistant Public Defender Challae Porter, Amelio’s lawyer.
Amelio’s father, James Amelio Sr., praised Porter and co-counsel Lien Lafargue and welcomed the jury’s decision.
“The truth set him free,” he said.
rolmeda@SunSentinel.com, 954-356-4457, Twitter @SSCourts and @rolmeda