A 26-year-old Panama City native was found guilty Tuesday of sexually battering a 17-year-old girl in 2019, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
Nathaniel Douglas Hicks, who was arrested in 2020 after an investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard and Bay County Sheriff’s Office, was found guilty as charged of Sexual Battery after 90 minutes of deliberation. Because the victim was over the age of 12 but under the age of 18 the crime is a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. Circuit Court Judge Brantley Clark set sentencing for June 18.
Prosecutor Frank Sullivan called 6 witnesses – including one woman who testified she was the victim of a similar attack by the defendant – and presented evidence proving the defendant sexually assaulted the victim at a get-together on May 18, 2019.
“The victim was a 17-year-old girl who just wanted to hang out with some friends and instead had the worse thing in the world happen to her,” Sullivan said. “She has been scared and traumatized and has had to live with what he did to her for seven years.
“The defendant showed in his statement to the Coast Guard and again in his testimony today that he will lie repeatedly to protect himself,” Sullivan continued. “The victim showed courage and was here to testify today because what this man did to her was wrong and he should be held accountable for it.”
The evidence showed the defendant knew the victim from high school and invited her – she had two friends with her – to a small gathering outside a beach residence.
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The victim testified the group hung around outside for a while before the defendant invited her inside. She said he took her into a bedroom and had sex with her against her will, pulling off her clothes and hitting her legs as she told him no and asked him to stop repeatedly.
“I kept telling him, “Stop, stop, stop, stop,” and he just started holding me harder,” the victim testified. “ It just got to the point where I kind of just blanked out and prayed for it to just be over.”
The victim said she fled when the defendant went to the restroom and went home with her friend. She did not call the police, she testified, because she was in shock and was terrified of her family finding out. She did tell two friends but asked them to remain silent.
“I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen and make it go away,” she testified.
But later in 2019 the Coast Guard received a report about the assault and interviewed the defendant.
In a 3-hour-long interview he initially denied knowing the victim, then denied being alone with her that night, then denied she was ever inside the house and that he never even kissed her. He eventually admitted he knew her and claimed they made out in his truck outside.
But he was adamant that nothing “sexual” happened and that he was never alone with her.
On the stand Tuesday, the defendant for the first time admitted he was in the house, in the bedroom, with the victim that night but claimed they did not have sex.
“So you lied to the Coast Guard again and again and again and you expect this jury to believe you today?” Sullivan asked.
Basford thanked the U.S. Coast Guard and Bay County Sheriff’s Office for their work on the case and the evidence they gathered to bring it to a successful resolution.
For more information, contact Mike Cazalas at mike.cazalas@sa14.fl.gov, or call 850-381-7454.