A state District Court jury deliberated less than two hours on Friday before finding 53-year-old Jose Cruz of Farmington not guilty of two counts of second-degree criminal sexual contact of a child, the Farmington Daily Times reported this weekend.

Cruz had been accused of fondling his 12-year-old step-granddaughter by putting his hands inside her underwear and the girl and two cousins were getting ready to spend the night at their grandparents' house, the Daily Times reported.

Had he been convicted, Cruz was facing up to 30 years in prison.

After hearing testimony on Thursday from family members and Cruz himself, even one of the 8-year-old cousins testifying to witnessing the incident, the jury found Cruz not guilty after defense attorneys questioned why a man with no criminal history would molest a girl in the middle of the kitchen while the girls' grandmother was in the room, the Daily Times reported.

"He wanted to go to trial from day one. He had a little more faith in the system," defense attorney Emet Rudolfo said of Cruz. "It was a big relief that the jury came back with a not-guilty verdict."

Prosecutor Lisa Kuykendall said the acquittal came as a surprise.

"Obviously we're disappointed," Kuykendall told the Daily Times. "We took it to trial because we thought he was guilty and that we could convict him."

Kuykendall said sex crimes often lack physical evidence and that a conviction relies on the word of the victims, the Daily Times said.

"I don't know what more we can present to a jury besides an eyewitness saying she saw it, and apparently that's not enough," Kuykendall told the paper. "It all does rest on little girls to come in there and tell what happened, and the juries, I think, want more than that." 

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