Coatesville man accused of sexual assault found not guilty

WEST CHESTER » A Coatesville choir director accused of sexually molesting a young man he allegedly promised to mentor in the music business has been acquitted of all charges by a Common Pleas Court jury.

Robert L. Newton was found not guilty on charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, and indecent assault by the jury of six men and six

women in Judge Anthony Sarcione’s courtroom. The panel deliberated for about five hours on Monday before reaching its unanimous decision.

Newton, 54, of Coatesville, who is also known as Robert Davenport, had testified last week that he had indeed had sex with the 19-year-old man in the basement of his mother’s home in West Brandywine after spending time with him on a trip to the Chesapeake

Bay in Maryland, but that the interaction was consensual. He also said that when the man told him to stop, he did so.

According to Dan Bush, the defense attorney from the West Chester law firm of Lamb McErlane who represented Newton at the six day-on trial, the case came down to whether the jury would believe Newton’s version of events or the young man. Bush argued that there were inconsistencies and problems in the man’s testimony that should cause the jury members to reject his story.

“There is nothing that

backs up his story except his credibility,” Bush told the jurors in an hour-long summation. “It could not have happened like he said. I am not asking you to hate (the alleged victim). But you do have to believe him and believe him 100 percent.”

On Tuesday, Bush reacted to the verdict clearing his client.

“I’m ecstatic for Bobby Davenport, and thankful for the long hours and time and effort that the jury put it,” he said. “The system clearly worked on this one.”

The Daily Local News does not report the identities of those who say they

have been sexually assaulted unless given permission by the person.

Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Morgan, who prosecuted the case along with Assistant District Attorney Alexis Shaw, on the other hand, said that the young man’s story was backed up by other evidence that should give the jury enough to convict him. She noted that he had texted “Help” to friends during the time of the encounter with Newton, and had flagged down a passing motorist outside the house after fleeing, telling them that he had just been raped.

“He went into that basement as a young innocent boy, but he walked out a victim of a sexual assault,” Morgan argued. “If you were having a consensual sexual encounter, why would you run out of the basement?”

Newton was arrested and charged in July, when he appeared at scheduled meeting with the young man at which time he was supposed to give him a check to pay

for therapy the man said he needed in light of the alleged assault. The conversation between the two men had been recorded by police who were investigating the man’s allegations. He has been free on bail pending trial since.

According to a criminal complaint filed by West Brandywine Detective James Bilski, the case began when a 911 caller reported picking up a man on Pratt’s Dam Road in the township who said that he had been raped in a house nearby.

The man told Bilski that he had met Newton, who he knew as Davenport, at a funeral in 2016 at which the two were performing, Newton playing the organ and the man singing. After the funeral, Newton approached the man and said he could help him with a career in singing. The two did not meet again, however, until June 5, when Newton again approached the man about helping with a career in music, the complaint stated.

The following day, Newton met the young man, a resident of the Coatesville area, and took him to North East, Md., to meet a “friend of his in the music career,” Bilski’s complaint states. They were accompanied by Newton’s 7-year-old son, but Newton began making references to sexual matters during the trip. When they arrived at North East, the person they had gone to see was not available, so they visited the Sandy Cove Christian ministry camp, had lunch, and turned back to Chester County.

The man told Bilski that Newton had dropped his son off at the Brandywine YMCA and, instead of taking him home, suggested they go to his mother’s house and work on music together. He agreed, and when they arrived they went to the home’s furnished basement where there was an electric organ.

During the vocal lessons, Newton began touching the young man suggestively, Bilski said in his complaint, and then began to kiss and lick him. At some point the young man was able to send text messages to friends, but said that Newton grabbed a hold of him at a space behind a bar in the basement and forced his pants down, molesting him.

The man’s phone rang at some point, he said, and when he went to answer it he was able to run up the stairs and out of the house.

Newton, in his testimony Friday, insisted that what had happened in the basement was consensual, and that the young man had not tried to stop it from the beginning. However, when at some point the man asked him to stop, he did. He let the man leave the room, thinking that he would be back.

When the man called him later and began accusing him of rape, Newton said he was fearful that what had happened between them would become known in the community and harm his business and his relationship with his longtime girlfriend and mother of his child. He agreed to give the man money in hopes that it would make him go away.

In his argument, Bush contended that the times of the man’s texts did not give enough time to allow the assault he said had happened with Newton to occur, and that there was not enough space behind the basement bar to permit Newton to grapple with him.

“Just the nuts and bolts of things don’t add up,” he said. “There is no way that assault could have taken place” the way the man said it did.

To contact staff writer Michael P. Rellahan call 610-696-1544.