ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Former Orlando police Officer William Escobar was acquitted Friday of all the battery and perjury charges against him.
The jury delivered the verdict around 3 p.m.
Escobar was acquitted of three counts of battery and one count of perjury.
He was accused of punching and kicking a handcuffed man in March 2014, and then lying about what happened that night.
The defense rested its case Friday. Prosecutors didn't call any rebuttal witnesses. Instead, they went straight to closing arguments.
Prosecutors told jurors that Escobar was angry and struck Refus Holloway to teach him a lesson, and then lied about it in his report to try to conceal what really happened.
The defense questioned Holloway's credibility, saying his judgment may have been clouded by alcohol and that he grabbed another officer's foot.
They also showed video frame by frame to try to show jurors that Holloway was not compliant.
"He's down and getting back up again. This is the man prosecutors say was compliant," said defense attorney Mark Horwitz.
"You cannot let your emotions get the best of you. You cannot let your anger get the best of you to teach a person a lesson," said prosecutor Ryan Williams.
During Escobar's testimony Thursday, prosecutors asked why, if Escobar felt his life was in danger, he never pulled his gun from its holster. They got him to acknowledge that he might not have needed to punch Holloway twice in a row.
"Did you give him time to comply after that first strike?" the prosecutor asked.
"No," Escobar said.
"So that was not the least amount of force you could use was it?" the prosecutor asked.
"No," Escobar said.
WFTV
