An Escambia County jury has acquitted a Pensacola man who was accused of kidnapping and raping a woman who had passed out on Palafox Street last summer.

Corey Hill, 36, was found not guilty Friday of the charges of kidnapping and sexual battery.

The jury exited the courtroom and started deliberations shortly after 11 a.m. and returned their final verdict shortly after 2 p.m.

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Orlando-based defender James Smith argued his client did not rape the woman and the sex that night was consensual.

“This case is not about rape,” Smith said in his closing arguments. “It is about regret.”

The prosecution said Hill kidnapped a highly intoxicated woman off a Palafox Street bench on Aug. 6, 2018, and carried her unconscious body to his car before driving away and later raping her.

Arguing that the sex was not consensual, Assistant State Attorney Erin Ambrose told the jury that the defendant had driven the woman home after their encounter.

“If she is going to tell him where she lives anyway, why would she agree … to have sex in some random parking lot, hanging out of a car like an animal?” Ambrose said in her closing argument. “If he is going to drop her off? Why didn’t she say, ‘Hey, why don’t you come inside’ where there are walls, privacy and a bed?”

Smith argued against that in his closing statement, saying “There is no rule book for casual sex. People do all sorts of things sexually all the time.”

The state relied heavily on video evidence to build its case against Hill. The footage came from numerous security cameras from downtown buildings that showed Hill’s movements and actions on the night in question.

When showing jurors clips of Hill circling the spot where the woman had passed out while he repeatedly looked over his shoulder, Ambrose argued that Hill had been keeping a vigilant lookout for potential witnesses prior to committing a premeditated crime.

“She was not conscious. She was not capable of consenting, which is why he picked her,” Ambrose said. “She was a wounded animal on that sidewalk. He prowled around her and took her off.”

The defense also used video evidence to make its case.

Hill filmed his sexual encounter with the woman on his daughter’s cellphone, which he had with him that night. He later forwarded the videos to his own cellphone.

The videos investigators found on the two devices were submitted as evidence and were at the crux of Hill’s defense. The cellphone videos, which were played for the jury, showed the woman awake and, according to Smith, encouraging the encounter to continue.

“Let’s talk about these videos. Does she look like a woman who is physically incapacitated in these videos?” Smith asked the jury in his closing statement. “Your eyes can’t make you forget one basic, indelible fact about this case: that woman in that video is not physically incapacitated … we have sounds of pleasure."

Colin Warren-Hicks can be reached at colinwarrenhicks@pnj.com or 850-435-8680.