Jury selection resumed this week in the retrial of a Hudson man accused of sexually abusing young children, with four of the 12 required jurors approved by lunchtime Thursday. The process, underway since Monday in Columbia County Court, comes seven months after a first attempt at trial ended in a mistrial when attorneys could not seat a jury at all.
Cristobal Orlando Ascencio-Chacon, 34, faces a count of predatory sexual assault against a child, a class A felony, according to The Daily Gazette. Prosecution and defense attorneys had agreed before the original trial to seat 12 jurors and three alternates, a benchmark that proved unreachable in April when the summoned jury pool fell apart entirely.
The charge’s full statutory classification is a class A-II felony. New York law defines predatory sexual assault against a child as involving a defendant at least 18 years old, a specified predicate sex crime and a victim younger than 13. The charge is an allegation, not a finding of guilt; the statute’s age threshold is separate from the report’s allegation that the children were younger than 7. The state’s Penal Law sets out the offense and its classification.
A Mistrial Born From an Empty Jury Box
Judge Richard Rivera declared the mistrial in April after prosecutors and defense attorneys were unable to agree on jury candidates from the pool that had been summoned, the outlet's report on the mistrial states. Ann Pazera, the Columbia County District Attorney's Office community liaison, attributed the breakdown to the defense and prosecution being unable to form a jury from that pool at all. Ascencio-Chacon had pleaded not guilty to all charges at his May 16, 2025, arraignment in Columbia County Court, according to the same account.
New York’s jury system calls for felony trial panels of 12 jurors, with up to six alternates; the three alternates agreed to here fall within that limit. Potential jurors are questioned by the judge and lawyers, who can challenge candidates, while state law calls for juries to be selected randomly from a fair cross-section of the community. Those rules provide the framework for the selection process, but do not establish why the first jury pool failed. The state courts’ explanation of criminal trials outlines the panel size and questioning process.
The case traces back to a Hudson police investigation that began after a reported domestic incident on Sept. 7, 2024. Police said they received information that Ascencio-Chacon had sexually abused young children, and the dailygazette.com report notes that all of the children involved were younger than 7 at the time of the alleged abuse. The predatory sexual assault allegation is tied to an incident said to have occurred outside Hudson.
From Domestic Call to Detective Division
After the initial report, Hudson police contacted the New York State Child Abuse and Maltreatment Register and began working with the Columbia County Department of Social Services' child protective division the same day. The criminal investigation was then turned over to the Hudson Police Department's detective division for further work.
A retrial after a mistrial is not automatically barred, but the point at which jeopardy attaches matters. New York’s Court of Appeals says that, in a jury trial, jeopardy attaches once the jury has been impaneled and sworn. That legal threshold is relevant here because the first attempt ended before the parties seated a jury, rather than after a panel began hearing evidence. A New York appellate ruling describes that rule.
Ascencio-Chacon was arrested on Oct. 23, 2024, and had a preliminary hearing in Hudson City Court the same day, after which he was held in Columbia County jail without bail and his case was moved to county court. Separate dailygazette.com reporting on the charges offers conflicting counts for the first-degree sexual abuse allegations: one account states Ascencio-Chacon was charged with four counts of first-degree sexual abuse involving a child less than 11 years old, while another states New York State Police charged him with six counts of first-degree sexual abuse, a class D felony, along with six counts of forcibly touching another's intimate parts for sexual gratification, degradation or abuse, a class A misdemeanor. Both first-degree sexual abuse accounts describe the charges as involving contact with individuals less than 11 years old.
What Comes Next in Columbia County Court
With jury selection still in progress as of Thursday, the court has yet to seat the full panel needed before opening statements can begin. The Daily Gazette's report does not specify when selection is expected to conclude or when testimony might start.
