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Child abuse case moves forward

News Herald - 7/30/2018

July 30--PANAMA CITY -- The case against a Bay County man facing four counts of capital sexual battery on two children will continue toward trial despite a claim from the defense that a deleted video of the victims' saying he'd "messed" with them would have cleared his name, a judge recently ruled.

Circuit Judge Allen Register handed down the order to move the case against 41-year-old Joseph Lee Kosier forward. Kosier was arrested in June 2017 after two children under 12 came forward with reports that they'd been molested over an "extended period" by Kosier while at his Lynn Haven home. Now, with Kosier facing up to four life sentences for the charges, his attempt to have the case dismissed with a claim the authorities destroyed evidence that would have been exculpatory has been denied, court records stated.

Kosier is currently out on a $100,000 bond and only allowed to leave his residence under the supervision of an adult family member. He is scheduled to go before a jury August 20.

At issue in recent filings was a video recording of the parent questioning the victims as to what transpired. In the video, the children allegedly responded that Kosier "messed" with them. The video was deleted by the parent before it was ever in possession of law enforcement.

Kosier's defense attorney, Jonathan Dingus, raised concerns that the content of the video could have cleared his client of guilt. He indicated the video could have shown the victims were influenced by the parent questioning.

"If this court were to believe that there are no inconsistent statements made by the child witness here, that misses the point -- any questioning of the sort here tends to taint the victim's credibility," Dingus wrote. "Exculpatory evidence was not preserved."

However, prosecutor Barabara Beasely argued the video was neither materially exculpatory or potentially useful. She also pointed out that law enforcement was not provided the video and did not instruct the parent to delete the video.

Register ruled that the video being deleted wouldn't prevent Kosier from raising its disappearance before a jury or questioning the parent about its contents.

"While (Kosier) raises a valid concern about a child witness being tainted by being questioned by a parent concerning sexual abuse allegations, the absence of the recording in this case does not preclude (Kosier) from presenting testimony concerning (the parent's) recording of the children's statements and her subsequent destruction/disposing of the record, facts she concedes in her deposition and facts conceded by law enforcement."

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