AUBURN - James Raymond Jr. told a jury Wednesday that he was lying when he told police he molested students at the elementary school where he taught music.

He hoped his fabrication would cut short the 2½-hour interview with a local police detective, Raymond said after taking the witness stand.

He testified for more than an hour the second day of his trial at Androscoggin County Superior Court. The 27-year-old, a former teacher at Park Avenue Elementary School, is charged with two counts of unlawful sexual touching and three counts of assault involving three former students.

A jury of four women and eight men began deliberating Wednesday after lunch, but hadn't reached verdicts on the five counts before they were sent home by the judge at 4 p.m.

They asked to listen to the testimony of one of the alleged victims, who said in court Tuesday that Raymond had touched her buttocks last fall at the end of class as she was exiting a portable classroom. Jurors also asked to review a videotaped interview with that girl when she described the alleged encounter. The jury is expected to be back in court Thursday morning.

The state rested its case Tuesday after one day of testimony that included all three alleged victims. Defense lawyer Walter McKee called Raymond to the stand first thing Wednesday morning and asked his client about his actions at school.

"I did not touch any of these children inappropriately at any time," Raymond said, looking at the jury as he answered each question.

He said the accusation that he slid his hand up the skirt of a second-grader during music class was an accident when he was trying to get her to sit down from a kneeling position. He even reported it to other teachers, he said.

In her testimony Tuesday, that girl said Raymond apologized the first time, but did it again, touching her buttocks over her underpants.

She told her mother, who sent her back to school. She later told a teacher when she was lining up to go back into Raymond's class.

A first grade student at the same school said Raymond squatted and touched her buttocks as she was leaving the portable classroom. On the witness stand Tuesday, she said she told Raymond not to do that and he apologized.

But in a videotape shown in court Wednesday, the same girl was heard telling an interviewer that "he might have been tapping me" good-bye as she exited the trailer.

Raymond said he didn't remember the incident, but said he never crouched down as the kids left the classroom.

A third alleged victim, now 14 years old, told the jury Tuesday that Raymond had touched her leg from ankle to knee one day during a school talent show when the room was dark. He dropped part of a camera on the floor and touched her when he was under the table, she said.

Raymond testified Wednesday that he remembered talking to the girl, but he didn't drop anything on the floor.

"That never occurred," he said.

Contradicting statements he made in a videotaped police interview that prosecutors played for jurors Tuesday, Raymond denied Wednesday having urges to touch the legs and buttocks of little girls. He said he never did any of those things.

He admitted having subscribed to child pornography Web sites.

"I'm not proud that happened," he said.

Those sites featured pictures of nude children, he said. But he stopped visiting those sites after viewing images of children engaged in sex acts, calling it "disgusting."

"I stopped it before it became an addiction," he said.

Raymond said his false confession to Auburn police Detective Chad Syphers last fall was prompted by feelings of intimidation.

"Unless I make some kind of admission to something, I was not going to be leaving this interrogation room," he told the jury. "I was trying to give him a little bit."

Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cashman told the jury in her final argument that Raymond could have simply denied the accusations. Instead, he revealed details that corroborated the allegations.

She told the jury to consider the motives of the witnesses. Only Raymond had an interest in the outcome of the trial, she said. Had the allegations by the three girls not been true, they would have no reason to point a finger at him, she said.

Raymond's attorney questioned the credibility of the girls. Despite the allegations that Raymond's actions took place in rooms full of other people or near them, there were no witnesses to back up their testimony.

One of the girls came forward with her story only after she was prompted by her mother following news accounts of the accusations against Raymond. Another girl told her story years after the alleged incident, McKee said.