9/17/09
When a 9-year-old Española girl whose stepfather allegedly raped her found out he wasn’t going to be charged with that crime and would be released from jail, she stared out the window of her family’s vehicle and refused to talk to anyone, her mother said.
“My daughter is a real strong girl but when I explained to her (how the case was resolved) she made a scared look,” the victim’s mother said. “She wouldn’t talk and then when we were going home she wouldn’t even look at anybody; she just stayed staring out the window.”
The victim’s stepfather, Juan Lopez, 26, of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse Sept. 11 and had the original rape charge dismissed, according to court documents. State District Court Judge Sheri Raphaelson suspended his three-year sentence except for the 13 months he had already spent in jail, Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Thwaits said.
If Lopez had been convicted of rape he could have faced up to 18 years in prison and would have had to register as a sex offender.
The rape allegedly occurred the night of May 22, 2007, when the victim and her mother were staying at Lopez’s sister’s house, according to Thwaits and a police report. Lopez allegedly took the victim for a walk to the Rio Grande where he pushed the victim, who was 7 year old at the time, to the ground, pulled down her shorts and underwear and started to rape her, but stopped because she was crying in pain. Lopez then allegedly told the victim not to tell anyone what happened.
The victim’s family found out what happened four days later when her grandmother noticed she seemed depressed and asked if something had happened.
Thwaits said prosecutors decided to resolve the case with the plea after Raphaelson suppressed photographs of the crime scene that were going to be used at trial and defense attorney Paul Branch expressed his intention to call into question the scientific validity of the sexual assault examination. Going to trial after that would have meant the trial would have been interrupted by a possibly lengthy hearing to establish the validity of the sexual assault examination, Thwaits said. Raphaelson’s ruling was in response to a Sept. 8 motion by Branch complaining that the crime scene photos weren’t disclosed to him until Aug. 31.
Española Police Sgt. Christian Lopez said his agency took crime scene photos at the time of the incident, but the victim subsequently changed her story as to where the rape took place, necessitating additional photos to be taken before trial. However, Thwaits was adamant that the victim never changed her story — she said Española Police took photographs, but they weren’t of the crime scene.
The case was originally handled by former detective Moises Pena, then was transferred to Sgt. Lopez, and eventually was taken over by Det. Bryan Martinez. Martinez and Pena didn’t return calls for comment.
The victim’s mother in the rape case said she was married to Lopez for seven years, during which he raised the victim as a daughter. After the alleged rape, she divorced him, according to the court records database.
“There was Moises Pena who was taking the case. He resigned and went to Santa Fe. It went to Christian Lopez. From Christian Lopez, Bryan Martinez picked it up, and not one of them went out there to the crime scene when they were supposed to take pictures,” the victim’s mother said. “Now they throw it at us like ‘Too bad.’ Just because of what detectives or law enforcement didn’t do, this is what happens — now my daughter’s going to have that fear the rest of her life because they couldn’t do their part and do their job in the investigation.”
Juan Lopez has 12 years in prison hanging over his head with this conviction and an earlier one. In November 2008, Lopez pleaded guilty to trafficking a controlled substance and had a nine-year sentence suspended, according to court documents and Thwaits. If Lopez re-offends within the next three years, he will have a hearing to determine whether he goes to prison for the 12 years total from the two convictions.
His crime record also includes a 2005 conviction for aggravated battery on a household member, according to an online court records database. And on Monday, just three days after he was released from jail, he was picked up after Española Police discovered he had a warrant out of Bernalillo County, according to 911 dispatch logs. A Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court online database states he has a pending domestic violence case.