A 4th District Court jury deliberated for less than an hour Tuesday before finding a former employee of the Provo Canyon School not guilty on four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, third-degree felonies.
James Lester Hardy, 30, Salt Lake City, was accused of having sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old female student at the private school in August 1990. During the trial the girl, now 16, testified that she willingly participated in sex with Hardy on four different occasions in one of the school's bathrooms.In closing arguments, defense attorney Ed Brass said if the girl's story was true someone would have seen them enter or leave the bathroom. Afterward, jurors said they reached the not-guilty verdict because there was no evidence to corroborate the girl's story.