A college student acquitted of sexual assault in a criminal case that dragged through the courts for nearly four years says the outcome will allow him to try have a normal life again.
Oscar Vargas, 23, a former Santa Fe College student, described his acquittal in a jury trial on March 28 as a huge relief. He had been accused of sexual assaulting without using force a former girlfriend, a student at the nearby University of Florida.
He has always protested his innocence.
“I had job opportunities taken away,” Vargas said in an interview. “My life was kind of – as I knew it – it was destroyed in the moment.”
Vargas dropped out of Santa Fe because of the ongoing case and stress over it. He said he is enrolled as a student again but declined to say where he was studying.
“The not guilty verdict…it allows me to just live a normal life again, or at least try to,” Vargas said.
Vargas, who was 19 at the time, was arrested in December 2021, six months after an encounter with a former girlfriend, when the two had watched TV over drinks. His accuser – who did not return phone messages after the trial – told police she was drunk, passed out on Vargas’ bed and woke up with him forcing her to perform oral sex. Vargas said she had come on to him, according to the arrest report.
The two had dated in 2018 and 2019.
The jury said prosecutors did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was even sexual contact between Vargas and his accuser, and it returned a not guilty verdict the same day it began deliberations.