'Rusty' Torres sex abuse trial jury told to keep deliberating

Telling them they had "not been deliberating very long," a Nassau County Court judge in the sex abuse trial of ex-Yankee outfielder Rosendo "Rusty" Torres instructed the jury to keep going Wednesday after the panel said it was deadlocked.

The jury spent about 2 1/2 hours deliberating Tuesday and about an hour total Wednesday before giving Judge Tammy S. Robbins a note around 2:30 p.m. -- about 30 minutes after returning from lunch.

The jury said it had voted four times by secret ballot but couldn't "achieve unanimity on any of the eight charges," according to the note Robbins read in court in Mineola.

"The bottom line is you really have not been deliberating very long," she said. "It might seem like a long time to all of you and I understand that."

Robbins said it was not unusual for jurors to have difficulty reaching a unanimous verdict, though most juries do.

The nine women and three men will continue deliberations Thursday.

Torres, 65, of Massapequa, was indicted on felony crimes, including seven counts of sex abuse involving girls younger than 11, that allegedly took place when he was a youth baseball coach for the Town of Oyster Bay.

Torres is accused of having inappropriate contact with two girls he coached in Plainview.

Prosecutors said he abused one victim, then 8, several times in April and May 2012, until she told her parents on May 7, 2012.

Torres was arrested the next day and suspended from his town job.He also exposed himself to that victim, prosecutors said.

He was also indicted on one count of second-degree "course of sexual conduct against a child." Jurors yesterday listened to a court reporter read the girl's testimony.

About half of them had notebooks; at least three were seen writing.

Prosecutors said Torres had been abusing a second girl since kindergarten in 2008, until May 2012, when the 9-year-old was in the third grade.