Crime & Safety
Bus Driver's Sex Assault Conviction Overturned
The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction of bus driver Gene A. Echols, citing errors made by the trial court. He was convicted in 2010 of sexually assaulting a student on the bus.
Gene A. Echols, convicted in 2010 of sexually assaulting a Whitefish Bay High School student while working as a bus driver, will get a new trial.
The student said Echols sexually assaulted her when she was the only passenger on the bus. Echols said she made up the allegations, according to an Associated Press report, after she threatened him with a snowball in an attempt to “divert attention from the incident, which might have resulted in expulsion.”
Echols appealed the conviction, and this month the appeals court reversed it and sent the case back to Milwaukee County for a new trial. According to the opinion, released Tuesday, Echols said the trial court erred when it did not allow evidence about the student’s “long history of disciplinary problems” which would have shown a motive for the girl to fabricate the assault, and allowed testimony that Echols “only stutters when he is lying.”
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The appeals court agreed in both cases and said those errors merited a reversal of his conviction.
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