Prosecutors won’t retry businessman accused of sex assault

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) - Prosecutors have decided not to retry a Wyoming businessman whose sexual assault conviction was overturned.

The Casper Star-Tribune reported Tuesday the Natrona County District Attorney's Office decided not to put 57-year-old Tony Cercy on trial a third time because it would likely result in a hung jury.

Cercy was accused of sexually assaulting a woman who passed out on a sofa at his Alcova lake house in June 2017.

The Wyoming Supreme Court overturned his third-degree sexual assault conviction after finding that jurors weren't properly instructed on state law regarding the crime at his second trial in November 2018.

While prosecutors presented evidence of oral sexual assault, the court found that kind of assault does not meet the state law's standard to show third-degree sexual assault. It found that it is applicable to the first- and second-degree crimes Cercy was acquitted of during his first trial.

Cercy was freed from a Newcastle prison camp on New Year's Eve. He had been sentenced to six to eight years.