Robbinsville – An area man will spend up to three decades in prison, after being found guilty of sexually-related crimes.
At the conclusion of a trial lasting almost two weeks in Graham County Superior Court on Friday, a jury found 39-year-old Casey Adam Haney guilty of two counts of indecent liberties with a child, and one count of statutory rape of a person 15 or younger by a person more than six years older than the victim.
The verdict came back after deliberations lasting less than an hour, with Haney being sentenced on the spot and taken into custody immediately. The first indecent liberties charge stems from incidents in 2017, while the second indecent liberties charge and the statutory rape charge took place on Feb. 4, 2018.
Superior Court Judge William Coward presided over the trial.
Haney will serve 272-406 months in total for his crimes, including 240-348 months for the statutory rape, and 16-29 months for each of the two indecent liberties charges. All sentences will run consecutively.
However, District 30 Superior Court Judge William Coward credited Haney the approximately 3 ½ years he spent in the Graham County Jail awaiting trial.
In addition, Haney will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, and will be required to abide by a permanent no contact order with the victim and her family. The now 17-year-old victim was 14 at the time of the most recent incident.
Haney plans to appeal his sentence.
DNA evidence
On July 22, the first DNA evidence made its way into the case, with testimony from N.C. State Crime Lab forensic scientist April Perry, who processed the sexual assault evidence kit collected from the victim at Mission Hospital in Asheville on Feb. 7, 2018, three days after the statutory rape occurred.
She said that upon her testing, she found that samples taken both from the victim’s vaginal area – and the drainage area of the pair of underwear the victim was wearing when the statutory rape occurred – tested positive for Haney’s DNA, with it being the major contributor. Samples of Haney’s DNA were obtained through a suspect sexual assault kit he voluntarily submitted at Swain Community Hospital in Bryson City.
But Forensic Science Expert Heather Miller Coyle – who was brought in by the defense – said that the underwear could have been a common area and come into contact with Haney’s DNA through some other manner, such as in the laundry.
She also contested Perry’s method of testing the samples, saying that it was minimal and incomplete, and that it could not 100 percent confirm the presence of semen.
“If proper, full testing had been done, we would have seen a better reading of the DNA,” Coyle said.
However – when cross-examined by Assistant Prosecutorial District 43 Attorney John Hindsman – Coyle admitted that the victim’s vaginal area would not have been an area where contamination was likely possible.
When Coyle first took the stand July 22, Hindsman expressed concerns about the degree of technicality in her testimony and the likelihood that it would be too difficult for him and Assistant Prosecutorial District 43 Attorney Jeff Jones to follow, due to information not being in discovery. The issue was resolved by Coyle providing a condensed version of her planned testimony to Perry, who met with the prosecutors Friday morning and helped clear up their questions.
Testimony
In his testimony, Haney flatly denied all of the allegations against him, and claimed to have been watching “Street Outlaws” and working on his Camaro in the driveway.
He similarly denied his crimes in a 2018 suspect interview shown to the jury, although he did admit to having a problem with alcohol. Both in his testimony and in the 2018 interview, he claimed that he had done no more than go into the victim and her brother’s bedrooms to check on them occasionally throughout the night.
In her own testimony early in the trial, the victim said Haney had abused her sexually for the first time, washing her genital area using a coffee can filled with water after complaining that he could still smell her after she showered. She said he would continually ask her if he could do it again and one night claimed that there were people outside who would harm the family if she didn’t let him take lewd pictures of her.
After she told him no, he came back into her room, forced her pants off and snapped photos of himself inappropriately touching the victim while she hid her face.
She also said that the abuse often occurred while Haney was drinking alcohol, and that he would often threaten to kill her family and her dogs is she did not comply.
The victim testified that Haney raped her in her bedroom the evening of Feb. 4, 2018 at the home both he and the victim lived in, on Honeysuckle Ridge Road in Almond. The other incidents took place at a series of homes both Haney and the victim lived in, located in Swain and Jackson counties and on the Qualla Boundary.
The abuse came to light after the victim told some school friends, with one friend telling her adoptive parents. Two friends gave statements to the school counselor, who passed word along to law enforcement and department of social services personnel.
The investigation began on the night of Feb. 6, 2018, when both Graham County Sheriff’s Office and Graham County Department of Social Services personnel showed up at the home. The victim admitted that she had been abused and was taken to Mission for the sexual assault evidence test.
Haney was not arrested until Aug. 23, 2018, although Graham County deputies ordered him to leave the victim’s home.
Closing arguments
In closing arguments, Fox made reference to Coyle’s testimony, and minor discrepancies between the testimony of the victim, her brother, her school friends and others.
“Their testimony seems to be out of sync with what (the victim) told us, and they seemed to be out of sync with one another,” Fox said.
He also directly addressed the DNA evidence, focusing on Coyle’s testimony and the work Perry performed at the crime lab.
“What you have at the end of the day is that among the items were the vaginal swab and the underwear,” Fox said. “There were traces. Her DNA showed up. His DNA showed up. What kind of DNA it was, what kind of cell it came from, there’s no way to know. It’s just DNA.”
Hindsman told the jury to stick to the facts and not go “chasing bunnies.” He said it was apparent that Haney had a common plan for sexually abusing the victim, only doing so at homes that the victim and her family were the sole occupants of and usually when the victim’s mother was at work at the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino.
“They lived in other houses with other people,” Hindsman said. “It never occurred there. These things don’t occur in front of other people.”
Hindsman also referenced the DNA evidence and Perry’s testimony.
“There is no reason whatsoever that the defendant Casey Haney’s DNA should be the major contributor in the DNA found in the crotch of (the victim’s) underwear,” Hindsman said.
After the verdict was read, Haney stood silent as he was sentenced and taken into custody.