A man formerly convicted of sexual assault in Missoula has been acquitted of all charges in a child sex abuse case in Flathead District Court.

Jason Dean Franks, 42, cried and smiled in an outpouring of emotion as a jury pronounced him not guilty of charges of sexual intercourse without consent and sexual assault after having been accused of molesting a 5-year-old boy between Aug. 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2006.

The jury arrived at the verdict at approximately 5:40 p.m. Thursday after six hours of deliberation. Franks’ defense attorney, Lane Bennett, was pleased with the result.

“I think it was a good verdict,” Bennett said. “We were confidant all along that we had tried a good case and that my client was not guilty of these charges, and we’re just glad. With a charge like this, it’s so hard to predict.”

Bennett said he believes what led the jury to the verdict was largely how the allegations arose.

“I think that the most important fact certainly may have been the fact that the alleged victim isn’t the one who divulged this information in any way that was reliable,” he said. “The allegations came out when the alleged victim and his one-year-older older brother were in therapy together, and that’s never ever a good place to get disclosures of this type of thing.”

He argued that the case should have been dropped when the initial forensic interviews came back negative, and that the therapy process the boys went through was “insufficient and scientifically unsound to corroborate these charges.” Bennett also said the forensic interviews that took place afterward were completed improperly.

“I don’t think it’s a case that ever should have gone to trial,” he said. “I think the state needs to take more time looking really hard at these cases before they charge people with horrendous crimes.”

Because of the age of the alleged victim, Franks would have faced Jessica’s Law if he had been convicted, setting his minimum sentence at 25 years and making him ineligible for parole during those 25 years.

According to Bennett, cases involving alleged sexual abuse of children are always difficult to defend because people are always going to believe that the alleged crimes happened.

“People in their hearts don’t want to believe that a child might not be truthful about something like this, and so deep down they have this feeling that this must have happened and they don’t understand that that’s not true,” Bennett said.

He cited as an example a case in California where several day-care teachers were arrested, charged, tried and convicted, and then all the cases were overturned because it was found the incidents had never taken place.

“That’s the hardest thing about these cases,” Bennett said. “This case could have been anything else.

“It could have been a murder, it could have been a drug case, a robbery case. It could have been any type of criminal case, and had I tried a case like that, I would have been walking out of the courtroom waiting for the jury to come back, happy as a lark, because I knew I had won it.

“But not with these cases. You just don’t know. That’s why it’s so critical to do them right.”

Franks still faces separate charges in a case where he is accused of raping an 11-year-old girl while he was living with her father in 2006. His next hearing in that case is scheduled for Jan. 10.