A criminal jury in Jefferson County heard opening statements and early witness testimony Wednesday in the trial of Dr. Nir Benir, who is accused of sexually assaulting patient Taylor Dempsey during a post‑operative appointment on April 5, 2022.

Prosecutor John Coleman told jurors the evidence will show that Dempsey was taken to a separate exam room, left without a female staffer present, and that the defendant "slid his fingers between my legs," touching the complainant’s labial area on two occasions, according to testimony presented during the state’s opening statement and the witness stand. Dempsey and her mother both testified that they went immediately to the Port Arthur Police Department and then to St. Elizabeth hospital for a SANE—sexual assault nurse examiner—evaluation.

The trial’s central dispute, defense counsel Mister Gertz told jurors, is the legal meaning of "penetration" and whether the state can prove by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that any insertion occurred: "We're going to be talking about those two words, penetration and insertion," he said during his opening remarks, and asked jurors to scrutinize inconsistent or imprecise uses of anatomical language in earlier statements.

On the stand, Dempsey described the visit and said the doctor removed sutures, pulled her underwear down to the tops of her thighs while she sat on an exam table and "slid his fingers between my labia" twice, without gloves. She also testified that in statements to police and the SANE examiner she sometimes described the contact as a "touch" and said she did not use the word "penetrate" in early reports.

Naya Knighton, a certified SANE nurse who conducted the April 5 exam, testified about the medical and forensic protocol: she documented sutures close to the genital area, described Dempsey’s demeanor during the exam and said she collected forensic swabs from multiple sites including the labia, vaginal/fornix area, abdomen and mons.

The state published a Texas Department of Public Safety crime‑lab report (lab case HOU220405819). A passage read aloud from the DPS report states, in part, that applying a 95% statistical confidence interval, "this profile is not expected to occur more frequently than 1 in 5,471 U.S. males," and that "any paternally related male relatives of [the defendant] cannot be excluded as the contributor of this male DNA profile" from some swabs. Knighton also read the portions of the report saying that "no interpretable Y‑STR profiles were obtained" on the vaginal and labia swabs.

Defense cross‑examination focused on differences between Dempsey’s early statements to law enforcement and the SANE nurse—where she twice said she was "touched" and "not penetrated"—and her courtroom testimony, on how the SANE swabs were labeled (the nurse acknowledged the report did not distinguish labia majora versus minora swabs), and on whether photos shown at trial made precise distances between sutures and genital anatomy clear.

Detective T. Kader, who assisted executing a search warrant at the cosmetic surgery center and who conducted a recorded voluntary interview with the defendant, testified the interview showed the defendant was "kind of evasive" and nervous. Portions of the search video were admitted into evidence. The court also admitted a Texas Medical Board affidavit in which the doctor described office protocol that, the affidavit says, typically includes having staff present for female examinations and states the doctor reported not wearing gloves when applying tape so the tape would not stick to gloves.

The judge reminded witnesses and jurors of courtroom rules and recessed for the day. The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:00 a.m.; jurors will be asked to weigh the testimony, physical and forensic evidence, and statutory definitions to determine whether the state has met its burden to prove the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.