Stacey Aldridge
AUSTIN, Texas — A 44-year-old former Austin hip-hop dance instructor was found guilty Thursday by a Travis County jury for sexually assaulting two teenagers after a night out in 2010.
Stacey Aldridge was convicted of two counts of sexual assault and acquitted of one count and faces up to 20 years in prison for each conviction. The sentencing phase in state District Judge Mike Lynch’s court continues today.
“The defendant befriended, he manipulated, he groomed and then he incapacitated these teenagers, and then he assaulted them,” prosecutor Mark Pryor said during closing arguments.
However, defense lawyer David Frank has argued that the testimony of the two teenagers — and a third woman who also testified she was sexually assaulted by Aldridge — was unreliable and fraught with lies. He also noted that the women did not disclose the alleged assaults to authorities for months.
“An older man going out with women who were his students, that’s not a crime,” he said.
In October, a separate Travis County jury found Aldridge not guilty of sexual assault in a different incident. In that case, one of his former students testified that he sexually assaulted her at his Northwest Austin apartment after a night out in 2006.
Pryor said the two victims in the current case came forward after reading news accounts of Aldridge’s arrest. He said Aldridge got the teens into a downtown nightclub on April 4, 2010 because he knew the bouncers and then provided them drinks before taking them back to his apartment.
One of them was drunk and throwing up on the sofa in his living room when Aldridge sexually assaulted her twice, Pryor said. Then he went into the bedroom and assaulted the other girl, Pryor said.
Meanwhile, Aldridge had worked as a dance instructor for years at several locations around Austin, including at The Dance Zone, a school near the University of Texas. He had been in jail since his November 2010 arrest.
Mfrances is a news writer for NinjaCOPS.com where you can get high quality self defense weapons, rechargeable stun gun flashlights, and law enforcement stun guns.
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