A Circuit Court jury Friday acquitted former University of Hawaii at Manoa student Tyler Strong of charges that he sexually assaulted a fellow student in his dorm room last fall.

Strong, 19, was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, an offense that carries a mandatory 20-year prison term, for an incident that occurred in the early morning hours of Sept. 21 in his UH-Manoa dorm room. He also was charged with one count of third-degree sexual assault.

Strong hugged his attorney, Jeffrey Hawk, and sobbed after the not-guilty verdicts were read aloud.

"This is a great example of the fact that the truth does set people free," Strong told reporters outside the courtroom.

He said he had nothing to say to his accuser, but cautioned fellow students to "be smart, follow God and understand that society today doesn’t favor young men, and you need to, as a young man, protect yourself. No one’s going to do it for you."

The jury of eight women and four men began deliberating the case Monday morning after a weeklong trial before Judge Randal Lee. But after Lee excused a juror Tuesday afternoon, an alternate was brought in, and the court instructed the jury to restart deliberations.

The jury alerted the court just before 4 p.m. Friday that it had reached a unanimous verdict on all three charges.

"As a young man … as you go through life, you have to make better choices," Lee told Strong, "and not put yourself in situations that might end up in this kind of situation."

The trial exposed intimate details of a drunken encounter on the university campus.

The state argued that Strong, who now lives in Eugene, Ore., forced himself on an 18-year-old woman and raped her.

The two said they had become close friends after meeting during freshman orientation last fall, and described their past friendship as flirtatious.

Strong acknowledged he was attracted to her and wanted to be more than friends.

The woman said that after a night of drinking with friends, she went over to his room expecting she might make out with him to get back at Strong’s dorm room neighbor, whom she was dating and had fought with earlier that night.

When asked what she thought was going to happen in Strong’s room, the woman said, "Kissing and cuddling was probably a possibility for that night. … It was kind of like, like a revenge thing."

Strong estimated he had three to four drinks that night, while the woman said she had around six drinks.

Strong said the woman came over to his room at about 5 a.m. Sept. 21 after he sent her text messages including, "Baby I wanna give it to you come back" and "Baby hurry."

The woman told a police detective that her response to his text was, "Dude, shut up." She actually texted Strong to come to her dorm room, according to a printout of the text conversation.

Strong testified that they had consensual sex that morning and that the woman never told him "no" or to stop at any time. During the trial, the woman testified through tears that she told Strong to stop six times.

The doctor who examined the woman the morning of the incident testified that he did not find any internal or external injuries. A DNA specialist with the Honolulu Police Department testified that she detected semen and sperm cells in the woman but could not determine whether they matched Strong’s DNA profile.

In general, it’s rare for the state to prosecute student-to-student sex assault complaints either because the victim doesn’t want to cooperate or investigators don’t find the allegations credible.

"I don’t think this case should have been brought at all," said Hawk, Strong’s attorney. "This was clearly a case of two people having consensual sex, and, I mean, it was there in black-and-white in the text messages."

Deputy Prosecutor Kristen Yamamoto said while the prosecutor’s office doesn’t agree with the verdict, it respects the jury’s decision.

"We still believe in the victim and commend her for having the bravery, the strength to actually pursue this case knowing everything and knowing the potential outcomes," she said. "And we’ll continue to take cases like this and seek justice for victims of sexual assault."