A Ramsey County jury acquitted a former St. Thomas student and track athlete of sexual assault after he was accused of raping a freshman female track athlete at a house party where other members of the men’s track team lived.

Jack S. Osborne, 25, of St. Paul, was found not guilty on one count of third-degree sexual assault Friday after being charged with the crime in March 2023. Jurors deliberated for 90 minutes before delivering their verdict. The trial lasted 11 days.

Attorney Nicole Kettwick, who represented Osborne, said her office hired independent investigators who spoke with several witnesses who were at the party on March 5, 2022, in the 2100 block of Lincoln Avenue in St. Paul.

“From our perspective, it’s a shame that the state doesn’t have more resources to investigate these cases in the first place,” Kettwick said.

She said the party had “40 or 50 people, many witnesses at it. I think state investigators talked to five or six people.” She said private investigators also went through text messages and social media posts that helped build Osborne’s defense.

Ramsey County Attorney’s Office spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said in a statement that, “While we are disappointed in the jury’s decision, we respect their verdict. Taking on these difficult cases starts with a willingness to believe victims who report sexual violence. We felt we held true to that commitment despite today’s outcome.”

Police met with the accuser two days after the party in 2022. She reported she blacked out and awoke to find Osborne raping her at the house where Osborne and other St. Thomas track athletes lived. The woman, not old to enough to drink alcohol, and others on the women’s track team went to a initiation party at about 7:30 p.m. that night and were served liquor. She said she drank a vodka cranberry cocktail and three hard seltzers. After that, the women’s team went to the house party.

Osborne was arrested, told police he did nothing wrong and said nothing further.

During his service, he was well-liked in his role as a medic, and in one incident saved another soldier’s hand after an injury, wrote Lance Owens, who said he served with Covert.

Covert had a difficult time transitioning to civilian life, his friends and family said. He told friends that while he was in Afghanistan, he saw a pregnant woman who had been torn apart by a bomb, and had seen a friend die, said Janet Wigfield, who said she knows him through his aunt, in a court filing.

Over the summer, one of Covert’s close friends died in a freak accident, a loss that he took especially hard, Owens and Johnson said in their letters.

Court filings show Covert had numerous run-ins with the police over the summer. On Aug. 1, Edina police said they responded to a disturbance in which Covert was overheard yelling that he had been contacted by Satan, and that Christians were under attack.

Five days later, Edina police said they were called to Our Lady of Grace Church after a report that Covert wanted to kill himself. Officers said they found Covert in a nearby park, and that he had told them he was a veteran and had recently lost a friend.

On Aug. 28, police said they received two calls about a possible suicide in Redwood Falls’ sprawling Ramsey Park around 9:43 p.m. There, police said they found a car registered to Covert and inside were camping supplies, a Bible and a crucifix. As police and a search dog scoured the 256-acre park and its miles of hiking trails and rocky outcroppings, they called out into the darkness, “Christopher, it’s the police, we are here to help you!”

A fire is burning in the Chengwatana State Forest north of the Twin Cities, a spokeswoman for the Department of Natural Resources confirmed Friday afternoon.

“We are aware it is burning,” said Leanne Langeber, a spokeswoman with the DNR’s Forestry Division. “We have DNR crews responding.”

Few other details were immediately available, she said.

The blaze in the forest, about 12 miles east of Pine City along the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, broke out as gusty southerly winds and low humidity levels were creating “elevated fire weather conditions,” according to the National Weather Service in Duluth.

No open burning or campfires are allowed in Pine County due to the ongoing dry and windy conditions, the DNR’s fire danger map showed Friday.

Fire danger in the forest was listed as “Extreme” on the DNR’s five-level danger scale, and the “situation is explosive and can result in extensive property damage,” authorities said.

According to the DNR, fire danger across the remainder of Minnesota ranges from high to extreme. With September recording near-record warm temperatures, moderate drought has expanded through much of the state, while severe drought has emerged in parts of northern and southwestern Minnesota.

The Chengwatana State Forest coves about 29,000 acres of forested upland islands surrounded by marsh and brush. Three rivers — the Kettle, Snake and St. Croix — flow through the forest, according to the DNR.