Cell video exonerates men accused of sex assault

Video locked for months in the phone of one of two Port Washington men charged with sexually assaulting a woman in March has exonerated them.

At the request of prosecutors, Ozaukee County Circuit Judge Steve Cain dismissed first-degree sexual assault charges against Joshua M. Black, 21, and Erik J. Ziehr, 22, last week. 

Ziehr had been scheduled to stand trial this week on the felony charge, which carries a maximum 40-year prison sentence.

The dismissals come after a company that specializes in accessing and analyzing electronic evidence and the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation were able to unlock cell phone video recently, Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said. 

“The additional video essentially exonerated the two defendants,” he said.

Black and Ziehr were charged two days after a Sunday, March 15, gathering at Black’s home in Port Washington.  According to the criminal complaint, a woman told authorities that she was very drunk when the two men sexually assaulted her, leaving her lying naked on the floor of the basement. 

She claimed she didn’t consent to the sex, Ziehr said she did, the complaint states.

Gerol said that shortly after the woman contacted authorities, the cell phones of Black and Ziehr were seized as evidence. A video that local investigators were able to immediately access “was supportive of the charges and the account of the victim,” Gerol said. 

But there were other videos locked in the cell phones, and after state investigators were unable to access them, the phones were sent to Cellebrite, a private company that specializes in forensic date acquisition. 

The company was able to unlock additional videos and sent them to DCI, which then alerted the Ozaukee County District Attorney’s Office to the new evidence, Gerol said.

The case, he said, illustrates the important role cell phone data plays in criminal investigations and how difficult it is to access it in high-tech electronic devices designed to protect personal information, especially when law enforcement agencies lack the resources to do so.

“In today’s world, people literally video record everything,” Gerol said. “Phone information is really great stuff, but examining phones and computers is very difficult because of the lack of resources.”