Nate Webster: 'I got a new move I want to try'

Nathaniel “Nate” Webster's accuser stood up to withering questioning Thursday as taped telephone calls played to jurors confirmed Webster had sex with the girl.

The accuser now is 18 but said she had sex with the former Cincinnati Bengal football player in the fall of 2009 when she was 15. She spent her second day on the witness stand answering aggressive questions from one of Webster’s attorneys who insist the girl was 16 when she had sex with the married Webster.

The tactic from Webster's team has been to put the girl on trial, questioning her drinking, smoking marijuana and having sex with an adult. Gregory Samms, one of Webster’s attorneys, got the girl to admit she was kicked out of a school for drinking alcohol.

The girl said Webster groped and sexually assaulted her in 2009 when she was 15. Later, she admitted they had a sexual relationship in the fall of 2009, also when she was 15. On Thursday, prosecutors played for jurors telephone conversations the girl had with Webster – she taped them with the help of police – who acknowledged he had sex with her.

“I got this new move I want to try,” Webster said on the tape.

“Like a sexual move?” the girl asked.

“A nasty move,” Webster said.

Webster’s lawyers, though, insisted the girl was 16 when she had sex with him. It’s illegal in Ohio for an adult – Webster was 31 in the fall of 2009 – to have sex with a 15-year-old. In Ohio, 16 is the age of consent.

Prosecutors also produced phone records that show in September 2009, when the girl was 15, she and Webster exchanged 450 text messages and 256 phone calls.

As the girl was testifying, prosecutors displayed three guns – an assault rifle, a handgun and a pistol-grip shotgun – seized from Webster. The allegations against Webster include him having guns near the girl when they had sex, possibly to intimidate her.

She and Webster often met, the tapes revealed, at “the spot,” the parking lot of an apartment complex near Webster’s Symmes Township home.
Mary Jill Donovan, one of Webster's attorneys, said Thursday she was unsure when or if she would call All-Pro LB Ray Lewis to testify in this case. She has subpoenaed him to testify. Prosecutors are expected to rest their case today and the defense to start Monday.

If Webster is convicted, he faces more than 30 years in prison.


(cininnati.com)