Gerard Dixon

JURY VERDICT: Auburndale man guilty of raping girl, recording the act

Gerard Dixon raped a 5-year-old girl and recorded the entire incident on his cell phone.

Gerard Dixon

Gerard Dixon

After about two hours of deliberation on May 15, a jury convicted Dixon of two counts of sexual battery on a victim less than 12. He is facing mandatory life and will be sentenced on June 28.

Assistant State Attorney Courtney Durden walked jurors through the evidence in the case and played the cell phone recordings for the jury.

Dixon can be heard on the video telling the girl to be quiet.

The girl’s mother found the explicit videos on Dixon’s phone and saved copies of the videos to take to law enforcement. Dixon was arrested the same day.

Durden told jurors that law enforcement was able to prove the girl’s identity through a birthmark and the pajama pants she was wearing. The videos also show portions of a room in the girl’s residence, placing Dixon in the home with her.

In one of the videos, Dixon’s face can be seen.

Dixon took the stand during trial and claimed he was not the man in the video.

He testified that it could not be him in the video because his lips look different, among other body parts.

But Durden told the jury that despite the differences Dixon tried to point out, they still have video footage of his face to compare with his photo.

Dixon also stated that the girl’s mother let a man who looked like Dixon break into her home, rape her daughter, and plant the videos on Dixon’s phone to set him up.

In her closing statements, Durden reminded jurors that Dixon lived with the girl and her mother for a year in the same apartment where the video was filmed. Dixon had sole custody of the child at the time of the assaults.

Durden told the jury it was completely unreasonable to believe another man was given access to the home to sexually assault a child while the mother knew about it.

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