Evans Found Guilty on Multiple Counts of Sexual Battery

State Attorney Melissa Nelson announces that a Duval County jury found Denzel Evans guilty of two counts of Sexual Battery. With the verdict, Evans faces up to 30 years in Florida State Prison. The Honorable Anthony Salem will sentence Evans at a later date.

On Dec. 2, 2024, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office responded to the emergency room at Baptist Health Downtown to meet with the victim, who reported she had been the victim of a sexual battery earlier in the day.

The victim and Evans were workplace associates. The victim called into work sick that day and Evans told her she needed to come to work or risk being fired. Evans told the victim he would pick her up from her apartment and bring her to work. Instead of driving her to work, Evans went to the empty parking lot of a Cleaveland Road church and forcibly raped the victim despite her pleas for him to stop. He then drove her home. Officials conducted a sexual assault examination that resulted in an unknown male’s DNA present — the DNA later matched Evans. In a post-Miranda interview with detectives, Evans said he had neither given the victim a ride that day nor had any sexual contact with her.

The case was investigated by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and prosecuted by Assistant State Attorneys Clare Kelly and Joy Whitmore.