[dragonwriter]

> The judge himself acknowledged that the evidence in this case raising a reasonable doubt is not the same as saying these events did not take place.

There is a fairly dramatic, well-known example of this (outside of the area of sexual assault) in the OJ Simpson case where the high (beyond a reasonable doubt) standard of criminal law failed to be met, resulting in a criminal acquittal for murder, but the lower (preponderance of the evidence -- or, in layman's terms, whatever the jury finds is most likely to be true) standard of civil liability resulted in a finding of civil liability for wrongful death.

A criminal acquittal means innocence only from the perspective of the criminal justice system, it doesn't mean the act charged was not committed by the person charged.