A paroled killer accused of groping a 13-year-old girl in a Plymouth hotel pool wants a judge to throw out the charges, arguing that police lost key evidence — notes and recordings from interviews with the alleged victim and her friend.
The alleged incident took place in February at the Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor. Police met with the girl in March, in a room wired for audio and video. But no recordings of the interview have been turned over to the defense, wrote Krysten Condon, the lawyer representing suspect James Barnes of Boston.
Nor has the Plymouth County prosecutor provided copies of the investigating officers’ notes taken during interviews with the alleged victim and her friend, who witnessed the alleged assault.
“These notes and recordings would have provided the defendant with exculpatory information relative to the [witnesses’] credibility and demeanor,” Condon wrote in a motion to dismiss the case filed in Plymouth District Court last month.
Barnes, 61, is charged with indecent assault and battery on a child, accused of repeatedly touching the girl in the Hotel 1620’s indoor pool in February. At the time, he was on parole and wearing an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet, which he hid by wearing black socks and a plastic bag over it, police alleged.
The judge hasn’t ruled on the motion to dismiss, court records show.
Neither the prosecutor nor Condon responded to requests for comment.
While the Plymouth Police Department did not respond to a reporter’s inquiry, Casey Kennedy, the town’s communications coordinator, replied on the department’s behalf.
“This is an active investigation, so we do not have a comment,” Kennedy said.
Prosecutors haven’t directly responded to the allegations in court, according to records. But this week, the Plymouth County assistant district attorney issued a “bill of particulars” outlining the case against Barnes.
Those details, together with the police report and any supporting materials are “sufficiently clear to show a violation of the law and to permit the defendant to know the nature of the accusations against him,” wrote Plymouth County assistant district attorney Victoria Wood.
According to prosecutors and Plymouth police, Barnes was swimming laps at the Hotel 1620 Plymouth Harbor on February 22 when he allegedly touched the girl multiple times, including once inside her bathing suit,
He stared at her without speaking, she told police.
It took several weeks before Barnes was charged — at first, the girl’s mother was reluctant to contact police, a police report said.
But over time the alleged victim and her mother apparently changed their mind, notifying police on April 9 that they wanted to go forward with the case, police reports said.
Barnes was charged in May after Plymouth police contacted officials from the state’s Electronic Monitoring Program, who were able to use GPS to determine that Barnes was in the pool area on the day of the alleged incident.
His parole officer provided police with a photo, which generally matched the description given by the alleged victim, police said.
Barnes spent 33 years in prison after pleading guilty in 1990 to shooting and killing Samuel Hernandez, who was once his best friend, according to parole board reports.
He won parole in July 2022 on his sixth try and was released in 2023.
A conviction for indecent assault and battery on a child ordinarily carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
But in this case, a conviction could mean that Barnes, who is being held at MCI Shirley, faces a much longer prison stay.
If found guilty, he would first serve any sentence imposed by the Plymouth District Court judge. He would then have to appear before the parole board, which could require him to spend the rest of his life in prison. Alternatively, the board could allow him to return to the community on parole, or end his parole altogether, according to a parole board spokesman.
If exonerated, he would still have to appear before the parole board to argue for his release, a parole board spokesman said.
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.