A jury on Thursday convicted a Denver man of breaking into his neighbor’s unlocked apartment and sexually assaulting her while she slept.
Christopher Sean Wilson, 37, who had pleaded not guilty to both charges in the Sept. 14, 2013 attack, will be sentenced in April and faces up to life in prison. Jurors deliberated five hours.
“After a year … to have 12 unbiased people actually see everything and come to their own opinion just validates it,” the woman said outside the courtroom, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry that his family has had to go through this. I’ve always been very sympathetic to them, and I can’t imagine what they’re going through. It’s just closure for myself. “I’m really happy right now. Sad, but happy at the same time.”
The Denver Post is not identifying the woman because she is a victim of sexual assault. Wilson’s attorney, Nick Avila, declined to comment beyond saying his client would appeal. Members of Wilson’s family, including his mother, also declined to comment.
District Attorney Julie Hamel also declined to comment.
In closing arguments Wednesday, prosecutors asked jurors to look beyond the lack of definitive physical evidence and use their common sense to convict Wilson. Prosecutors argued there was ample opportunity for DNA on the woman to be contaminated between when she fought off her attacker — who fled before police arrived — and when she arrived at Denver Health Medical Center for the examination.
Wilson had told police in a recorded interview played for the jury that he had dreamed of walking into an apartment, wandering down a dark hallway and seeing a naked woman, her back toward him. He stopped short of telling police he had assaulted her.
“When you look at the confession and coincidences, yeah, there’s a lot of coincidences. But the crux of it, he didn’t say,” Avila said. “You heard the defendant say he would give DNA if it helps. Does that sound like a person who’s trying to hide out, that snuck into somebody else’s room and then ran out? Does that sound like a guilty person?
“None of the scientific evidence points to the defendant.”
Prosecutor Lindsay Van Gilder asked jurors to consider that Wilson would have been the “unluckiest guy on earth” to be accused of this crime, considering all of the other evidence.
“His whole claim about a dream,” Hamel said during closing arguments. “All of this is a convenient way to try to avoid responsibility, to avoid that ultimate thing, which obviously was very difficult for him when he sat through that (jail) interview.
“You are being asked to make a credibility statement between this dream and what actually happened.”
