A University of Toronto architecture professor has now been acquitted in two sexual assault cases.

On Thursday, a judge found James Andrew Payne, 55, not guilty of sexually assaulting a female acquaintance in the spring of 2011.

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, testified that she came forward to the police after hearing in the media that Payne was charged with sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman. He was found not guilty in that case last month.

“I am unable to conclude (the complainant’s) account has any greater claim to acceptance in this court than Mr. Payne’s,” Superior Court Justice Katherine Corrick said in her Thursday ruling.

She found the testimony of the complainant and Payne to be “equally plausible,” she said.

“I am unable to determine on the evidence before me where the truth lies.”

The woman testified that she had met Payne when she was a student at the University of Toronto and they were “loose acquaintances.”

She was not a student at the time of the alleged assault, court heard.

After chatting with Payne at a bar near Dundas St. W and Ossington Ave., she agreed to continue their conversation at his home, she testified.

She testified that he initially stopped when she rejected his sexual advances and she fell asleep in his bed. But she woke up to feeling him groping her lower body, she said, and as she left in the morning she realized her bra was undone.

Payne testified that he did make sexual advances but stopped as soon she told him to. He denied sexually assaulting the complainant while she slept.

After court, Payne hugged his lawyer, Steven Stauffer, but declined to comment.

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Payne was acquitted of sexually assaulting a 21-year-old woman in December 2011 in a separate ruling last month.

After the first charge was reported in the media, a University of Toronto spokesperson said Payne agreed to stop teaching at or going to the campus of the University of Toronto until further notice.