Jury deliberations began Friday for a man accused of sexually assaulting a woman and threatening her with a knife after an early-morning break-in at her apartment.

Defense and prosecution attorneys presented closing arguments in Douglas County District Court in the trial of Brian K. Charles, 20, Lawrence. He faces charges of aggravated sexual battery and aggravated burglary stemming from the May 2, 2002, incident. Charles also was charged with attempted burglary later that month at a nearby apartment. He is charged with two similar crimes in a separate case.

To place Charles at the scene, prosecutors relied upon the victim’s identification of Charles from a photo lineup of six men. The victim told police that she awoke to a man fondling her but that light in the room at the time, about 3 a.m., was limited.

Picked from photo lineup

The victim said she determined her attacker was a black man because of the texture of his hair, which she brushed against in the struggle. Police presented her photographs of six black men 22 days after the incident, and she identified Charles as her attacker.

But the incident lasted between 30 seconds and a minute, defense attorney Martin Miller argued, and light from the woman’s hallway would not have reached the back wall of the room where she was sleeping in a twin bed, Miller said.

Miller argued that the victim’s description of her attacker was too vague to put Charles at the scene beyond reasonable doubt. In the short encounter, in the dark, she had concluded the man was a light-skinned black man with short hair. But the definition of light skin is debatable. Even a Hispanic man could look like a light-skinned black man in the dark, Miller said.

Prosecutor Dave Zabel said the victim didn’t hesitate when she saw Charles’ picture. The photo police presented her was next to a photo of a light-skinned black man of similar appearance, but the victim was sure of her choice. Zabel urged the jury to trust the victim, though the woman had admitted to consuming alcohol earlier that evening and leaving the lights in her bedroom off when she slept.

The victim was wearing a shirt the night of the attack, which became bloodied. DNA tests found none of Charles’ blood on the shirt. But the prosecution said that was consistent with the victim’s testimony. She had been cut by the attacker’s knife in a struggle; but she never said the attacker had been cut, too, Zabel said.

The defense questioned the origin of the blood on the shirt. The victim said she had been slicing tomatoes earlier that evening. It was possible she could have cut herself then, Miller said.

Zabel introduced another piece of circumstantial evidence — an extra-extra large, red T-shirt found during a search of Charles’ house. Charles, who has a slim build, hadn’t been wearing the shirt when he was caught. But the victim had described her attacker wearing oversized clothing.

“I’m not asking you to convict him because he has a red shirt,” Zabel told the jury. “But it doesn’t hurt.”

Innocence maintained

Charles, who claims he is innocent of all charges, scoffed at the claim and shook his head.

Miller and Zabel debated the possibility Charles had been detained because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Police say Charles was caught tampering with the doorknob of a town house in the 3500 block of West 22nd Street later that May. Police had been investigating unrelated burglaries in the area, Miller said, and found Charles at the apartment. He hadn’t entered the locked residence, but Zabel maintained that he had attempted a burglary by attempting to open the door.

The night Charles attempted to enter the apartment on West 24th Street wasn’t the same night as the sexual assault, Zabel said, but the style was the same. He was walking near the house in the early morning, as he would have been if he were the attacker in the sexual assault in the 3700 block of West 24th Street. He tried to enter the house without breaking anything, as the attacker in the assault did, Zabel said.

The jury was scheduled to continue deliberations Monday.