Following a jury trial, Alonzo Phillips was convicted of one count of child molestation1 and one count of aggravated sexual battery.2 He appeals his conviction and the denial of his amended motion for new trial, arguing that the trial court erred in 1 admitting a videotaped interview of the victim into evidence; 2 denying his motion for change of venue due to prejudicial pretrial publicity; 3 denying his equal protection challenge to the aggravated sexual battery statute; and, 4 finding that he did not receive ineffective assistance of counsel. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm. Viewed in a light most favorable to the verdict, Davis v. State ,3 the record shows that in July 2003, twelve-year-old S. J. had developed a school-girl crush on Phillips after seeing him in the neighborhood where she was living with her grandmother. S. J. began telephoning Phillips at his home, and eventually, she and Phillips would converse on the telephone nearly every day. During one of these conversations, Phillips asked S. J. to visit him at his house. S. J. agreed and walked down the street to Phillips’s house; however, after knocking on his door, she became nervous and left without entering his home. A day or so later, Phillips convinced S. J. to visit him again, which she did. S. J. entered Phillips’s home, he began kissing her, and later, in his bedroom, he inserted his finger into her privates. Shortly thereafter, S. J. left Phillips’s house and went back home. A couple of nights later, S. J. returned, and during this visit, Phillips put on a condom and had sexual intercourse with her. After a few minutes, he stopped and S. J. decided to leave. As she was leaving, however, she noticed that a light was on in her grandmother’s house, which indicated that her grandmother was awake. S. J. attempted to sneak back into her grandmother’s house but found that the door had been locked. She ran back over to Phillips’s house and asked if she could use his telephone to call her grandmother and have the door unlocked. When Phillips refused, S. J. returned home and knocked on the door so that her grandmother would let her back in the house.
S. J. admitted to her grandmother that she had been at Phillips’s house and further admitted that Phillips had sexually molested her. S. J. was taken to the hospital to be examined and was interviewed there by a police detective who had been called to investigate the incident. The next day, the same police detective interviewed S. J. at the police station regarding Phillips’s sexual molestation of her and recorded the interview on videotape. During that interview, S. J. recounted the details of her encounters with Phillips.
