The trial of a former first-grade teacher accused of molesting four female students got under way late Tuesday afternoon, and the defense team made one thing clear: The jury is going to be there awhile.
"This man's freedom is enough to inconvenience you. You will be here into next week," defense attorney Reagan Wynn promised the panel of six men and six women.
Jose "Joe" David Soliz, 29, who taught at Worth Heights Elementary School, is on trial in state District Judge Scott Wisch's court. He is accused of two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, punishable by up to life in prison, and three counts of indecency-fondling, each punishable by up to 20 years.
During her opening statement, prosecutor Rebecca McIntire, who is teaming with Bill Vassar to try Soliz, told jurors that she was "not going to sugarcoat it."
"This is a very important case," she said. "It has to do with our children -- and our children being victims."
McIntire said four girls who came from "simple, unsophisticated" families would testify that they were "tickled" by Soliz. They were so young that they didn't realize his actions were sexual and criminal, she said.
"This case is not about tickling," McIntire said. "This case is about child molestation."
McIntire said that the allegations surfaced April 3, 2006, when a girl was taken to Cook Children's Medical Center after telling her mother that it hurt to use the restroom. The child, a first-grader, later said that Soliz touched her "in between" while tickling her.
The second accuser, also a first-grader, surfaced a few days later when investigators questioned Soliz's class. The girl told officials that Soliz tickled her under her shirt on the breast in the classroom.
On April 8, 2006, McIntire said, the Star-Telegram ran an article about Soliz's arrest, prompting a third accuser to come forward. The girl, a fifth-grader who was in an after-school program, also said Soliz tickled her under her shirt in the classroom.
The fourth accuser made allegations against Soliz in July when she learned that prosecutors, preparing for trial, wanted to talk to her about her former teacher. That child also said that Soliz tickled her on her breast in the classroom, McIntire said.
McIntire told jurors that the only thing the girls had in common was their teacher and that they had no motive to lie.
Wynn, who is teaming with Jeff Kearney to represent Soliz, had a different view.
"An innocent man is sitting right over there," Wynn said during his opening statement after McIntire took her seat. "And I don't mean presumed innocent. I mean he did not do these things."
Wynn told the jury that Soliz was a devoted educator who chose to teach struggling kids at a "bad school in a bad neighborhood."
He said that the first accuser, whom Soliz made repeat first grade, "flat-out lied" and that hysteria over a "child molester" in the school soon followed. He said investigators interviewed the children in such a way that they would eventually tell them what they wanted to hear.
Furthermore, Wynn said, the girl who came forward after the article ran had at the time recently been taken out of a psychiatric hospital and had a "psychotic aversion" to going to school and would do anything not to go back. The fourth girl, Wynn said, had been questioned 16 months earlier but never said anything.
After opening statements, Bobby Whiteside, assistant director of special investigations for the Fort Worth school district, testified that when he first confronted Soliz with accusations in April 2006, Soliz seemed remorseful and acknowledged that he tickled students but denied that it was sexual.
"He said, 'I tickle students, and I am trying to stop. I have never tickled them maliciously,'" Whiteside said.
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