Chattanooga: Child rape convict denied new trial

A man serving 20 years in prison for child rape has been denied a new trial amid accusations the prosecution withheld information that questions the credibility of his accusers.

At issue were the conflicting statements a brother and sister made when they were 12 and 11 years old to Tennessee’s Child Advocacy Center after allegedly being raped by 51-year-old Albert Lamar Schleif. The center offers a place where law enforcement personnel and child-protection advocates investigate alleged incidents of child sexual abuse and severe abuse.

During a three-hour hearing Monday in Hamilton County, defense attorney Jes Beard argued that prosecutors did not reveal the statements — which included conflicting accounts of what actually happened with the defendant — until the middle of the trial last November.

According to trial testimony, the children were staying with Mr. Schleif, who gave them alcohol, showed them pornographic movies and played strip poker with them. He then urged the siblings to have sex with each other and with him.

In one statement made at the Child Advocacy Center, the brother said he and his sister drank alcohol during the incident. The sister, however, said she never had anything to drink. In another, the brother said he had touched his sister sexually on previous occasions, but the sister said no one ever had touched her sexually before the incident in question.

Reiterating that the entire case hinged on the credibility of the victims, Mr. Beard said not knowing about the conflicting statements prevented him from “directing the jury’s attention to what we believed was important in the case.”

A jury convicted Mr. Schleif of two counts of child rape and one count of solicitation to commit rape. He was sentenced in January to 20 years in prison for each child rape conviction and three years for the solicitation conviction, but the judge ruled the sentences would be served concurrently.

Hamilton County Judge Don Poole denied Mr. Schleif’s motion for a new trial Monday, saying the prosecution followed the law in not initially revealing the brother and sister’s statements at the center.

According to Tennessee state law, all records containing reports of child sexual abuse are to be kept confidential except in certain circumstances.

“At the very most, (the statements the children made) are minor inconsistencies,” Judge Poole ruled.

During the trial, the defense claimed that the two children made up the story because the boy, now 19, was mad at Mr. Schleif for telling their mother that he smoked marijuana.

Mr. Beard also questioned the Hamilton County district attorney’s policy of directing those at the Child Advocacy Center never to record what children tell them.

“They don’t want them recording because then it’s hard to challenge what anybody says,” Mr. Beard said.