Jury finds man accused of raping stepdaughter not guilty

LEE COUNTY, Fla.- A verdict has been reached in the retrial of a man once convicted of raping his young stepdaughter.

Richard McDade, 68, was found not guilty Thursday afternoon after a jury deliberated his fate for three hours.

McDade’s accuser has been very vocal and out in the open with her accusations. Brenda Salais rushed out of the courtroom after the verdict was read, too upset to talk.

McDade hugged his wife moments after being found not guilty.

Salais claimed he repeatedly raped her over the course of six years in their house in Tice.

He was convicted of the crime in 2011 but was granted a retrial because prosecutors played illegally recorded conversations.

McDade tells WINK News he believes those recordings were edited to make him look guilty. Now, four years later, he’s a free man.

“I was elated, just completely elated I’ve been waiting on this day forever. I didn’t know if it was ever gonna come,” said McDade. “You don’t know how it feels to know if you’re gonna spend the rest of your life in prison for something you didn’t do.”

Because of this case, state lawmakers passed a new bill that allows victims of sex abuse to secretly record their abusers. The law, however, couldn’t be retroactively applied to this case.