November 20--  It took the jury in the Carrie O'Connor sex case less than 30 minutes to return a not guility verdict Thursday at noon in Montgomery County Superior Court.  O'Connor is the former high school counselor who was tried on charges of having sex with a 16-year-old Montgomery County High School student.

After hearing two days of testimony, jury foreman Cliff Sikes said the jury was unanimous in its verdict.  "There was not enough concrete evidence to convince they jury beyond a shadow of a doubt that it did actually occur," he said.

O'Connor had been accused of having sex with student Fabian Pineda.  However, defense attorneys told the jury Pineda had "been all over the board" with his story about the alleged affair.  In his summation to the jury, attorney Paul Cook said there's "not one shred of consistency in anything the kid has said."

He reminded the jury Pineda initially denied the affair when questioned by the GBI, but later changed his testimony.  Pineda's parents have a federal civil suit seeking damages from the Montgomery County school board.  According to Cook, "This case is all about money.  They're playing the lottery and they want you, the jury, to be their winning ticket," he said.

Cook also accused Carrie O'Connor's husband, Ladson O'Connor, of convincing the GBI to re-open its case against his wife.  The attorney says they are involved in a bitter divorce case and O'Connor wants his wife to go to jail so he can win custody of their two children.

District Attorney Tim Vaughn, in his closing statement, twice played a tape of a cell phone conversation of O'Connor cursing in a conversation with Pineda.  He said that's not the way a guidance counselor talks to a student.  However, Cook had earlier told the jury O'Connor was not on trial for bad language, but for having "sex with a 16-year-old kid."