Is a Decorated Soldier Being Tried for His Twin's Sex Crimes?

Defense attorneys say cops failed to investigate twin brother

Photo: Colorado Springs Police Department/AP

Attorneys for an Army lieutenant and father of two facing life in prison for a three-state sex-crime spree will tell the jury that cops failed to investigate their client’s twin brother.

Army 1st Lt. Aaron G. Lucas, 32, of Fort Carson, Colo., an artillery officer who has earned 10 medals including a bronze star, “just wants fairness. That s what he risked his life for, for our country,” his co-defense attorney, Elizabeth McClintock, told PEOPLE Monday.

McClintock says she’s not claiming Brian F. Lucas is guilty of any of the 32 charges facing his twin brother – only that, if the evidence points to multiple suspects, the cops have to look carefully at each one. In this case, she says, DNA evidence linked to Aaron could just as easily have been linked to Brian.

Aaron is charged with lewd encounters with 11 adolescent girls, three of whom were sexually assaulted. A DNA test linked him to an 8-year-old girl’s abduction in Colorado Springs and also matched biological material from an unsolved Alabama case and an attack on a young girl in Texarkana, Texas, in 2009.

During a hearing Friday, investigators for the prosecution testified they did interrogate Brian in Madison County, Ala., and that Brian denies any involvement in the crimes and says he’s only been to Colorado once in the past decade.

Defense attorneys argued, however, that Brian has lived in Alabama and in Texas, and that there’s evidence that a third man is responsible for the Colorado assaults.

District Judge David Shakes ruled that attorneys can present the evil-twin defense at the Jan. 4 trial. “Whether it’s persuasive or not, that’s not my role,” the judge said. “It’s the role of the jury.”