The 13-year-old girl who was raped two weeks ago by two homeless
men told police she returned to them after being raped
– and after willingly making out with a 20-year-old woman
elsewhere – because she wanted more drugs. Her account veers wildly
from the suspects’ stories but a prosecutor said her story would be
corroborated by evidence.
The 13-year-old girl who was raped two weeks ago by two homeless men told police she returned to them after being raped – and after willingly making out with a 20-year-old woman elsewhere – because she wanted more drugs. Her account veers wildly from the suspects’ stories but a prosecutor said her story would be corroborated by evidence.
Cresencio Evarado Blas, 29, and Benancio Quinones, 49, face multiple sex and drug charges – including five counts of child rape and furnishing marijuana and a controlled substance to a minor. The men are currently in custody at the Main Jail in San Jose. Their bail was set at $1.2 million at an arraignment Nov. 23, Deputy District Attorney Stuart Scott said.
According to police interviews, the 13-year-old girl ran away from school Nov. 18 after she got into a fight. About 3 p.m., police received a phone call from the children’s home where she lived reporting her missing. Later that night, the investigating officer received another call from the home reporting that the girl had returned and that she had been assaulted by two men and a woman.
The girl told police she met the two men by a baseball field by the red barn in Christmas Hill Park after she ran away from school. The men asked if she wanted to smoke marijuana and she followed them to their encampment – on the ranch side of Christmas Hill between the levee and Uvas Creek – where she smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine and drank part of a can of beer, she told police. Although she did not know the older man’s name, she called the younger one – Blas – “Cruz” because he had that name tattooed on his shoulder and he drew out lines of cocaine using a Mexican identification card bearing that name.
The men then pulled the girl into their tent, tied her hands above her head and removed her clothes, she told police. Although she told them to stop and fought to keep her clothes on, Blas sodomized her while Quinones penetrated her vaginally, she said. Neither used protection.
When they finished, the men allowed the girl to leave, she told police. As she was walking in a field to the west of the Gilroy High School baseball field, the girl met a woman she only identified as a 20-year-old black woman named Jasmin. Jasmin asked the girl if she was cold and offered to take her home to warm up. The two walked about eight blocks to a two-story brown house and went upstairs to Jasmin’s bedroom, the girl said. The girl told police she would not be able to identify the street or house they went to. At Jasmin’s, the two got into bed under the covers and began kissing and giving each other hickeys, the girl said. The girl told police she was a “willing participant.”
About two hours later, the girl went back to Christmas Hill Park “because she wanted to smoke more marijuana,” according to the police report. She found Blas and Quinones near Miller Avenue and Uvas Park Drive and asked to use their cell phone to call someone to come get her, she told police. The men told her she needed to do “something” in return. They convinced the girl to return to their tent where they raped her again, according to the report.
Afterwards, she used Blas’ cell phone to call a staff member at the children’s home and was picked up near Miller and Uvas.
“I noticed she was very calm and relaxed during our conversation,” wrote the investigating officer in his police report. “I felt as if (the victim) had not been emotionally affected by the events she had just suffered through.”
After interviewing the victim, police took her back to Christmas Hill Park to identify the two homeless men. The men were sleeping inside a makeshift tent made of draped tarps and lined with blankets, officers observed. Police took Blas – who had been arrested in 2005 for sexually assaulting a child – and Quinones – who had been previously charged with multiple drug offenses – into custody without incident. The outcomes of those prior cases was unknown as of the time of the arrests, police said.
During a search of the two suspects, a pair of white panties fell out of Quinones’ pant leg. The victim identified the underwear as hers and the two men as the people who had assaulted her.
At the campsite, which was strewn with “junk,” police collected a glass smoking pipe, a small bag of marijuana, several discarded cans of Natural Ice beer, sleeping bags and blankets, a dirty pair of men’s underwear, other clothing, a bucket containing a rope similar to the one the girl said the men used to tie her up, super glue, garden tools, a wallet, and some fruit.
Police later took the girl to the Valley Medical Center clinic in Gilroy to be tested by the county’s newly opened Sexual Assault Response Team.
According to police interviews, both men denied having sex with the girl. They also said they did not know how old she was but assumed she was about 16 or 18. Blas said the girl approached them looking for drugs. The three went for a walk but Blas left to buy beer at Cheers Liquor Market – on Monterey Road between Ninth and 10th streets – and left the girl with Quinones, Blas told police.
According to the police report, Blas initially told police he returned to the encampment with the beer to find that the girl had already left. He later said he returned to Quinones and the girl naked, “making love like a couple does to have kids.” When Quinones and the girl finished, the girl told Blas to take off his pants, Blas said. But when he did, she told him “you have it too small.” Instead, he used his hands and tongue to caress her body but he did not have sex with the girl, he told police.
Because the interview was conducted in Spanish and the officer did not want to misinterpret Blas’ words, she asked him to write in detail what had happened. In his note, Blas also denied having sex with the girl.
However, Blas contradicted himself, first saying the girl later returned and had sex with Quinones a second time, then saying she never came back.
