Former Portage wrestler acquitted of child molesting
By James D. Wolf Jr. Post-Tribune correspondent August 2, 2012 5:02PM
Updated: August 2, 2012 8:00PM
After almost six hours of deliberations, a jury returned two not guilty verdicts for the former 1998 state champion wrestler accused of child molesting.
Portage High School graduate Jason Tabor, 33, will be freed from Porter County Jail just two weeks shy of a year spent in there waiting trial on the Class A felony and Class C felony child molesting charges
Defense attorney Larry Rogers said the not guilty verdicts came “I would assume (from) a lack of evidence, no corroborating evidence and a girl who had trouble telling the truth in life.”
He said in closing arguments that her story didn’t make sense that Tabor would assault her two feet away from her light-sleeper mother and again in her bedroom while mom was cleaning nearby.
Deputy Prosecutor Trista Hudson had argued that during a March 2001 weekend, Tabor took advantage multiple times of a 13-year-old girl who had a crush on him.
Hudson didn’t return a phone call about the verdict.
Rogers had labeled the situation a “Jerry Springer” episode.
He said the girl was shuttled between her mother’s home, her stepfather’s home and her biological father’s home, and mother had seven children from four men.
