Jury clears Cadott man in sex assault case

Oct. 7—CHIPPEWA FALLS — A Chippewa County jury cleared a Cadott man Wednesday in a sexual assault case that occurred in July 2019.

Devyn J. McCormick, 24, formerly of Eau Claire but now using a Cadott P.O. Box address, was charged in Chippewa County Court with second-degree sexual assault of an unconcious victim.

The trial began Tuesday. At the time of the incident, McCormick was 21 and the accuser was 38. After deliberating less than an hour Wednesday afternoon, the jury returned a not guilty verdict.

After the verdict was read, Chippewa County District Attorney Wade Newell said he "doesn't agree with the juror's verdict but I have to respect their decision."

Newell told the jury that McCormick and the woman were hanging out at a bar in Cadott on July 7, 2019. She went home and went to bed; McCormick stopped by the house shortly thereafter.

"When he got to her residence, he told her son he had been invited over," Newell said. "She was asleep when he got there."

McCormick entered her bedroom, disrobed, and had sex with her, Newell said.

"The evidence will show the victim was asleep and stayed asleep. She woke up to the defendant having sex with her," he said. "She told the defendant to stop, but he didn't stop."

McCormick got dressed and left afterwards. The woman exited her bedroom, and told her son to lock the doors and windows.

"She was frightened at what had occurred," Newell said.

Newell read a text to the jury that the woman wrote to McCormick the following day, telling him to stay away from her. Newell said the anger and explicit language she used were not words of someone who had just engaged in consensual sex.

However, defense attorney George Miller described the events as a "booty call" and a consensual "late hook-up." Miller said McCormick laid down next to the woman, and she gave him indications she wanted to have sex.

"He's treating that as an invitation she wants to do more," Miller said. "The version of events, my client has been very consistent on, is this was consensual sex."

Miller said McCormick and the woman had engaged in sex just a few weeks earlier.

"He has absolutely no motive to force sex on her," Miller told the jury.

McCormick took the stand Wednesday morning, saying he vaguely remembered the evening; he didn't even remember taking off his clothes.

"I remember enough to know it wasn't a sexual assault," McCormick testified.

Newell questioned McCormick about being accused in 2017 of committing a sexual assault in 2010, when he was a minor. At the time he was questioned, McCormick initially denied the sex assault, but later admitted to it.

A nurse testified to tell the jury that the woman's injuries were consistent with a sexual assault.