Mosley not guilty on all sex charges

A Butler County, Missouri, jury found a Poplar Bluff man not guilty of several sex charges.

Thomas "Billy" Mosley was found not guilty Friday after a week of trial proceedings. The jury took 3 1/2 hours to reach their decision.

Mosley was accused of three counts of first-degree statutory sodomy and three counts of incest. The charges stemmed from alleged instances of sexual abuse between Dec. 22, 2017, and Nov. 11, 2018, after Mosley and his girlfriend separated and a court awarded him supervised visitations to the couple's two children.

Statements from one child detailed the supposed incidents. However, no physical evidence of violence was uncovered during medical examinations of the child, defense attorneys Kyle Warren and Matt Edmundson noted.

They also said witness statements contradicted the prosecution's timeline of events.

After the first allegations, the Mosley family took pains to extensively document every visit and never left Mosley alone with his children in order to protect him from future accusations, the family testified.

"I would say that it came down to the fact that there was a lack of any physical evidence, and the fact that the defendant had been under supervised visitation from his family and had somebody to corroborate his testimony that none of the attacks occurred," said Warren.

The case was prosecuted by assistant attorneys general Christine Krug and Kristin Estep. Krug had presented testimony alleging Mosley had been left alone with the child, and that the child's demeanor had changed after supervised visits began. After the mother called the authorities, the child was examined by medical personnel at St. Louis Children's Hospital and interviewed at the Children's Advocacy Center, information of which was also presented in court.

An investigation by the Wayne County Sheriff's Department led to Mosley's arrest before the trial. He was free on bond during the proceedings.

Associate Circuit Judge Joe Z. Satterfield of the 35th Circuit presided over the case.