Melanie Curtin’s rape retrial ends with closing arguments | Courts

Prosecutors and defense attorneys painted two different pictures of a 17-minute video of an alleged rape during their closing arguments Tuesday in the retrial of defendant Melanie Curtin, which is connected to the case of ex-sheriff’s deputy and convicted child sex abuser Dennis Perkins.

Prosecutor Cassidy Smith, with the Attorney General’s office, honed in on the first “nine minutes and 59 seconds” of the video where the alleged victim didn’t move during sexual activity.

“If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a lewd and lascivious video won’t shut up,” Smith told jurors about the video of Perkins, Curtin and the alleged victim.

While Jeanna Wheat, a defense attorney, argued that the alleged victim, after those nearly 10 minutes, was moving their hands to participate in the sexual activity in a way.

“Does that seem like non-voluntary control to you? It didn’t to me,” Wheat told jurors.

She also spoke about Perkins’ sexual history involving women pretending to be asleep during sex.

“Dennis Perkins has a documented sleep kink,” she said.

Curtin, of Denham Springs, was originally convicted of first-degree rape in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2022.

But in 2023, a court of appeals ruled that Curtin, 46, must receive a new trial, saying the court “improperly admitted evidence that unfairly prejudiced the defendant.”

Curtin is now being tried on reduced charges of simple rape, also known as third-degree rape, and video voyeurism.

The jury began deliberating late Tuesday following closing arguments.

The state brought in its last witness Tuesday, a toxicologist who testified in the last trial. Judge Brian K. Abels originally ordered the testimony to be excluded, after Curtin’s defense team argued it “steps into juror’s role.”

However, a court of appeals ruled that the toxicologist could generally testify how an intoxicated person might appear, but couldn’t make specific conclusions about the defendant or the alleged victim in the video.

Curtin turned down the opportunity to testify Tuesday and her defense only brought one witness to the stand for the trial.

A Livingston Parish woman who had a sexual relationship with Perkins around 2015 testified and described how Perkins would ask her to take her prescribed sleep medication and pretend to be asleep while they had sex.

“If I woke up … I’d have to pretend I wasn’t awake,” the woman said while crying.

Curtin could face up to 20 years for the simple rape charge, and one to five years on the video voyeurism charge at hard labor and without benefit if convicted, said Lester Duhé, a spokesperson for the Louisiana Attorney General’s office. The AG’s office is prosecuting the case.

Curtin, a former real estate agent and a former employee of the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office, was one of the defendants to face charges following a probe into former Sheriff’s Office Deputy Dennis Perkins.

Perkins and his ex-wife, Cynthia, a former parish school teacher, were convicted of varying degrees of sex crimes involving children, ranging from child pornography to inserting bodily fluids onto cupcakes served to junior high students.

Curtin’s case does not involve children.