Jury begins deliberating in Christensen case
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BY LORI PILGER / Lincoln Journal Star
The criminal case against Andy Christensen has made its way to the jury’s hands.
Six men and six women must decide if the suspended Husker lineman reached under a woman’s skirt at the Brass Rail early March 8.
Or if, as the defense asserts, he was a victim that night, guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The jury left Friday afternoon without reaching a decision, and will reconvene Tuesday to resume deliberations. The members spent the afternoon reviewing the case, following the closing arguments that took place Friday morning.
When it came to the question of motive, Deputy County Attorney Krista Hendrick put it simply in her closing argument.
“Andy Christensen did something stupid when he was drunk,” she said.
He was a football player acting on “liquid courage,” after drinking hard liquor rum and cokes for several hours, Hendrick said.
His accuser, meanwhile, had an excellent memory of what occurred. Though she’d been drinking that night, too, it effected her “very little, if at all,” Hendrick said.
She said Christensen thought he was above the law.
“He’s a football player. The entire state looks up to him. Somehow that night he’s above the rules,” Hendrick said.
She said it’s no surprise police didn’t find Christensen’s DNA on the woman’s leggings or her DNA on his hands. He’d been holding a drink, and threw the bar owner who tried to throw him out of the bar before his hands were tested.
If the jury believes the woman that she was sexually penetrated, they have to also believe Christensen was the one who did it, she said.
“He was the only person who could have,” Hendrick said.
She said no one ran out of the beer cooler, penetrated her, then ran away.
“The reality is sometimes good people do bad things,” Hendrick said.
He wanted to touch her, so he did, she said. Why?
“Because he thinks he can get away with it. You’re the jury. Can he get away with it?” she asked.
Bob Creager, Christensen’s attorney, compared it to five people in an elevator. One is pinched. She turns around and slaps the guy behind her. But another guy did it.
“This is a circumstantial case. This isn’t two people on the elevator,” he said.
Creager said the case is about one thing.
“Did Andy Christensen penetrate (her)?” he asked. “Or was Andy Christensen in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
He said there was no evidence Christensen did anything to the woman. There’s just the woman’s claim that after she was assaulted she turned around and he was the one she saw.
“That’s not a fact. That is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Andy Christensen did anything,” he said.
Creager said the woman admitted others were in arm’s reach of her, just not from Christensen’s angle.
He said she had tried and convicted him in her own mind and set it set her off on a tirade in which the 5-foot-4 woman chased after a 6-foot-3 300 pound football player, more than twice her size, who she thought assaulted her.
Creager said she was either full of “liquid courage” herself, or had the kind of spirit of which he hasn’t heard.
“It just amazes me that woman ... has the audacity to say she was in control of her mind and body,” Creager said.
Earlier Friday morning, out of the presence of the jury, he tried to get in evidence about a preliminary breath test police did of her that showed she her blood alcohol level was .127, above the legal limit to drive.
But the tests are not allowed in court.
In his closing argument, Creager told the jury in the woman’s mind Christensen was guilty and nothing was going to change that. But they were in court.
And, he said, there wasn’t DNA, witnesses or anything to corroborate what she said.
“The only verdict that makes sense in this case is not guilty,” he said.
Christensen could get up to 50 years in prison if he’s convicted.
Reach Lori Pilger at 473-7237 or lpilger@journalstar.com. Cory Matteson contributed to this report.
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