UB graduate student Jinho Choi was found not guilty on Monday in the Oct. 16 rape and sexual assault of a former girlfriend, according to The Buffalo News.
Following the trial, Choi, a 31-year-old student in the department of linguistics, said he now wants to get his teaching assistant status reinstated and continue to work toward his Ph.D. at UB.
Immediately following his arrest, Choi was suspended from UB indefinitely, according to Dennis Black, vice president for Student Affairs, in an Oct. 20 article in The Spectrum.
A graduate of Seoul National University in South Korea, Choi had been jailed since his arrest. After a week of testimony overseen by State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Forma, a jury ruled not guilty on both charges, according to The Buffalo News.
Choi had been charged with first-degree rape and third-degree assault. In his testimony on Friday, Choi acknowledged he did hit his former fianc?(c)e, but only after she threatened him with a knife, according to The Buffalo News.
The accuser, also a UB graduate student, told the jury that on the night of the alleged assault, Choi asked her to come to his Flickinger Court apartment to study. According to the Buffalo News, she said she was raped in the early morning and assaulted when she tried to call 911. The engagement between Choi and the accuser had ended in March 2004.
Choi's attorneys argued, according to the Buffalo News, that Choi and the accuser had consensual sex the night of the alleged assault.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
