Businessman released from prison after conviction overturned

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — A businessman whose sexual assault conviction was overturned last week is out of prison as he waits to hear whether prosecutors will try him a third time.

Tony Cercy, 57, was freed from a Newcastle prison camp Tuesday after paying the $100,000 bail requested by prosecutors and set by a judge, the Casper Star-Tribune reported. Cercy’s lawyers had filed a motion asking for his immediate release on Monday, claiming it would be “virtually impossible” for him to be tried again.

Cercy was accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old woman who passed out on a sofa at his Alcova lake house in June 2017.

The Wyoming Supreme Court overturned his third-degree sexual assault conviction after finding that that jurors weren’t properly instructed on state law regarding the crime at his second trial in November 2018.

While prosecutors presented evidence of oral sexual assault, the court found that kind of assault does not meet the state law’s standard to show third-degree sexual assault. It found that it is applicable to the first- and second-degree crimes Cercy was acquitted of during his first trial.

District Attorney Dan Itzen plans to meet with the alleged victim and her family before deciding whether to charge Cercy, who was sentenced to six to eight years in prison, again.