A jury in the High Court at Auckland has acquitted two men of all charges relating to taking a 15-year-old girl captive and threatening to post on the internet images of her being sexually violated.
Wei Feng, 20, and another man, 22, whose name was suppressed, were found not guilty of blackmail and kidnapping charges by a jury which had been deliberating since yesterday afternoon.
The 22-year-old was also cleared of sexually violating the girl.
The Crown alleged that Feng had in September 2008 lured the girl to his co-accused's house in the Auckland suburb of Lynfield on the pretence of taking her to lunch, fully aware that his co-accused was going to get her to strip naked and blackmail her.
Feng left her at the house and locked the door behind him.
Crown prosecutor Anna Longdill said the other man threatened to rape her unless she either posed naked for photographs or performed oral sex on him.
She was scared, upset and captive in the house so she complied with this demand while he filmed the act on a cellphone, Ms Longdill said.
"I didn't want to do it, I just wanted to leave, but I didn't have any choice," the girl told police.
The Crown further alleged that the girl had agreed to open a bank account for the man in her name and, when she changed her mind about committing this fraud, he sent her text messages threatening to put the images on the internet.
The defence claimed the girl went to the house willingly, was never detained and was not sexually violated.
The 22-year-old's lawyer, Ron Mansfield, said the man did threaten to put the images on the internet, however, the pictures he was referring to were of her drinking at a karaoke bar -- which her strict mother would have taken exception to -- and were not even taken by the accused.
There was no reference in the messages to anything sexual, which one would expect if he had indeed violated her, Mr Mansfield said.
The Crown case was entirely dependent on the evidence of the complainant, which was unreliable, given the inconsistencies between what she said in her police interview and what she said during the trial.
"It's easier when you're lying about the core of your story but it becomes more difficult when you're lying about the detail.
"If you (the jury) are fair and impartial you must have grave concerns regarding the complainant's account in light of (the accused's) evidence".
Members of the accused men's families wept tears of joy after the verdicts were read out.
