LIVINGSTON — A special agent with the Louisiana attorney general's office told a jury Wednesday that a woman accused of rape was an active participant in the 2014 assault and not a victim herself, as a defense attorney has claimed.

Melanie Curtin, whose retrial opened this week in the 22nd Judicial District Court, was previously convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to life in prison. She is now being tried on charges of simple rape and video voyeurism after an appeals court said the judge hearing the case ruled improperly on what evidence jurors would consider.

The case against Curtin developed as child-sex-crime investigators looked into former Livingston Parish deputy Dennis Perkins and his wife Cynthia. The allegations against Curtin do not involve children.

Special Agent Gene Guidry told a jury seated after 2 1/2 days of jury selection that investigators believed a 2014 sex video found in a cache of material was possibly made consensually. They later concluded it depicted criminal activity and, after the judge cleared the courtroom, the state showed it to jurors Wednesday afternoon.

Lawyers for the state asked jurors to consider that the victim on the tape was immobile — not moving for more than 10 minutes. Curtin's attorneys say the videotape was made "by Dennis Perkins for Dennis Perkins" and that the evidence will show that the only perpetrator depicted is Perkins himself.

Jurors are expected to hear from the woman on the tape. The state had asked that the courtroom be closed for her testimony, but the state Supreme Court agreed with defense arguments that an "open trial discourages perjury."

Curtin was convicted in 2021, but the 1st Circuit set aside the conviction and sentence a year later. The appeals court said Judge Brian K. Ables admitted evidence too prejudicial against Curtin and rejected elements that could aided her defense strategy.

Perkins and his wife, Cynthia, were arrested in October 2019 and ultimately faced 150 counts alleging they raped two children and an adult, produced child pornography and served schoolchildren baked goods contaminated with a bodily fluid. Perkins is serving 100 years in prison after pleading guilty to a variety of charges, and Cynthia Perkins was sentenced to 41 years.