Man acquitted of rape

PALMER — A jury acquitted a man Wednesday accused of raping a 15-year-old babysitter after a weeklong trial, attorneys and the man’s mother said.

Nathaniel Lebaron, 19, will go free after a jury found him innocent July 15 of two counts each of first-degree sexual assault and second-degree sexual assault. Lebaron had faced as many as 99 years behind bars, if convicted.

Lebaron, an agricultural worker, had been visiting Alaskan relatives from Mexico, where his family still lives, when the 15-year-old girl told friends at the high school, and later Alaska State Troopers, that Lebaron had forced himself on her sexually.

Lebaron and the girl had been romantically involved prior to the incident, and fear of discovery may have led the girl to make the accusation, said Lebaron’s mother, Catherine Lebaron, in a phone interview.

“I’m happy as I’ve ever been in my life,” she said. “We live in Mexico, so it was such a far distance and difficult to think of him going back to jail for 20 years or something, was just insanely awful.”

Troopers wrote in their original charging documents that the interaction leading to the accusation occurred when the Lebaron and the victim — the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman does not identify the alleged victims of sex crimes, or juveniles — were alone together at a relative’s house. The girl didn’t tell anyone about the incident until after discussing the matter with friends at school that Monday, according to a Frontiersman archives.

Nathaniel, who was 17 at the time of his arrest, spent almost two years in local jails awaiting trial on a $100,000 bond. The bond was reduced to $10,000 at a May hearing, which family members traveled to Alaska to attend.

“It’s been hard economically, but it’s all worth it in the end,” his mother said.

The family plans a quiet outdoor celebration Sunday to mark the end of the ordeal. The Lebarons plan to return to Mexico Tuesday.

Catherine says she thinks the time away has changed her son, in some ways for the better.

“He was a good kid, a really good kid, but he started hanging out with a few friends, and his friends started doing marijuana and stuff, and he started doing it too,” she said. “Honestly, I felt really bad that he had to sit in jail two years. By the time we knew bail was even a possibility … even the $10,000 we put up for bail and the money we had to pay the lawyer and everything it’s just not easy to come by.”

At the same time, the Lebaron’s extended family stepped up to help while Nathaniel was in prison, Catherine said.

“That’s the way we were able to do it,” she said.

Other prisoners would threaten Nathaniel and steal his commissary, Catherine said. The situation was increasingly stressful and harrowing.

“It was really scary, and I don’t even know that I know it all,” she said. “I just know bits and pieces.”

At the same time, the family is hoping that the sometimes-harrowing jail time provided time for Nathaniel to reflect on his choices, Catherine said.

“In a way, though, it stopped him,” she said. “It stopped him in his tracks. I know it may have made him think a lot, and even decide he doesn’t want to go back to drinking or marijuana or anything like that.”

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.