The defense and prosecution in the rape trial of former
sheriff’s Sgt. Michael Rodrigues have nearly wrapped up closing
arguments, with the jury set to deliberate Wednesday morning. With
the defense finishing after 4:30 p.m. today, visiting Judge Alan
Hedegard called for a recess until 8:30 a.m., when the prosecution
will have a chance at rebuttal before jurors decide Rodrigues’ fate
in the trial that began two weeks ago.
BY KOLLIN KOSMICKI AND COLIN MCCONVILLE
HOLLISTER
The defense and prosecution in the rape trial of former sheriff’s Sgt. Michael Rodrigues have nearly wrapped up closing arguments, with the jury set to deliberate Wednesday morning.
Deputy District Attorney Patrick Palacios spent this morning recounting testimony of the four women alleging rape. His closing statement focused on convincing jurors that Rodrigues followed a pattern with victims, and he opened the two-hour discussion by calling the suspect a “serial rapist.”
Defense attorney Art Cantu had the floor in the afternoon. His closing statement targeted the witnesses’ credibility and the investigation done by authorities. He particularly focused in some instances on dates and tried to show contradictions in the witnesses’ testimony.
With Cantu finishing after 4:30 p.m. today, visiting Judge Alan Hedegard called for a recess until 8:30 a.m., when Palacios will have a chance at rebuttal before jurors decide Rodrigues’ fate in the trial that began two weeks ago.
Proceedings today were before a near full gallery of residents watching the closing statements as the clean-shaven defendant wore a suit and glasses and intently watched the proceedings, often with a hand on his chin.
Rodrigues is accused of raping four women between 1999 and 2007, when a grand jury indicted him on three of the charges. Prosecutors added a fourth suspected victim in the fall of 2008. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
Prosecution recounts witnesses’ testimony
Palacios started his arguments by reverting to a comment he made during his opening statement about “seeking truth and justice together” and he called the defendant a “serial rapist” with five known victims – one more than prosecutors charged – and what he described as seven incidents of rape.
Palacios worked in mostly chronological order from the first to last accuser. In the mid-1999, he recalled the first accuser’s testimony that Rodrigues raped her when he had tried to end their relationship, after talking her into letting him into her apartment. He recounted her testimony how they met because he had been investigating a lost dog.
“I’m not buying a story that he is investigating a lost dog,” said Palacios, referring to his position as a deputy sheriff.
Palacios noted how even though she had been going through treatment for cancer, he was still harassing her and, the attorney alleged, eventually raped her again. Palacios recalled her testimony how he called her months after the first encounter at work and demanded to see her at lunch, and how she conceded. He noted that she alleged once at her place, he threw her on the couch as she said the whole time, “No, leave me alone.”
Attorneys both, for different reasons, hashed over the fact that the witness did not report these incidents until the sheriff’s office internal affairs investigation in 2006.
After briefly talking about expert testimony on rape trauma syndrome heard previously – including how two-thirds of all rapes aren’t reported and how victims of rape “normalize” the experience – Palacios discussed the second accuser’s allegation.
In February 2006 when the two had been having consensual sex, Palacios noted how she testified at a certain point she saw “a side of him she has never seen before” when Rodrigues grabbed her hair and became violent. Palacios, who occasionally pounded on the jury box to make his points, said the suspect was so forceful with the witness – whom Rodrigues had known since 1994 when they met – that he left bruises on her thighs.
Palacios then moved on to the third suspected victim and pointed out her testimony that she met Rodrigues in February 2007 when he pulled behind her vehicle – in this instance, at Jerry’s Restaurant – in his patrol car while on duty.
“That’s how he met a number of his victims,” Palacios told jurors.
He went on later: “He took advantage of them.”
Palacios recounted how the suspect convinced her to meet him away from downtown “in between some warehouses” and how he shoved his hand down her dress and penetrated her vagina without consent. He noted her testimony how the two entered into a sexual relationship and that in June 2007, after telling Rodrigues she had been raped by a law enforcement agent in Monterey County, the defendant started being more aggressive toward her and eventually raped her.
He also recalled her testimony alleging he “sadistically” used a vibrator with excessive force on her, prompting the witness to “beg him to stop.”
In recounting the most recent charge filed, which the witness denied before coming back a year later to report it, Palacios pointed out her testimony how the two met in the fall of 2006 and about a month later, they were reacquainted when Rodrigues started sending her messages on MySpace.
He noted she testified how he called her and came over, that she told him she felt “lousy” from the medication, and how he proceeded to pull off his pants when he arrived. The prosecutor recalled how she alleged she tried to run away but couldn’t, and how he pinned her hands over her head and raped her.
He alleged Rodrigues told her, “Nobody tells me ‘no.'”
Palacios went on to define corroboration and pointed to other character witnesses who testified about suspected incidents involving Rodrigues. That included reserve deputy John Klauer’s testimony about an alleged attempted rape in a Nevada hotel room and a woman who contended she and Rodrigues had a sexual relationship in the early to mid-1990s when she was age 16 or 17.
Cantu in his closing, however, questioned the witness’ account about her age at the time and noted how she was born in June 1976. She testified the two broke up when he met another woman around Halloween in 1994, which meant she would have been over 18 at that time.
Cantu questions stories, investigation
The defense attorney started his closing statement by telling jurors it is now “your case” and that they should “take the chips and let them fall where they are.”
Cantu also started with the first Jane Doe and contended she had “no credibility” while pointing out how dates she provided did not match. He noted how she testified they dated for seven to 12 months starting in October 1999, but that she contended the last time they saw each other was on Jan. 1, 2000, when she alleged he raped her a second time after meeting her during work hours.
He also pointed out her testimony that Safeway, where she had worked at the time of the second suspected incident, opened at some point in 2000.
“The dates of these incidents don’t make sense,” Cantu said.
He criticized investigators saying there was “no investigation by law enforcement to question that fact” and he also examined why they had not queried potential witnesses around the Hillcrest Road apartment building – about her testimony that he parked his patrol car in her parking spot nearly every morning around 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. – where she lived at the time.
“What’s so bad about knocking on a couple of doors and asking the manager?” Cantu said.
He also asked why investigators had not further questioned her account, which included comments about being sick at the time with pneumonia from walking in and out of a freezer and recounting how she became separated and widowed in 2002, though she contended she lived alone when the suspected rapes occurred.
Cantu moved on to cite the witness’ testimony, when asked about the suspected rapes, on a report she contended she made to a police officer, in a separate incident, how someone possibly had broken into her home while she was sleeping.
“What is this other incident that doesn’t have anything to do with the other?” he said, before adding, “You can’t opine this person is seeded in reality.”
A common theme that came up during Cantu’s closing was his questioning why no investigating officers – including the investigator who queried three of the witnesses – had taken the stand for the prosecution to elaborate on their work.
While recounting the story of the second accuser, whom he had met in 1994, Cantu alleged she was pressured by investigators to allege the 2006 rape while he contended she had a lot of stress at the time, was going through a divorce, and was a “chronic alcoholic.”
Cantu recalled how she said in her testimony she had consented to intercourse at first before testifying, when asked if she had told him to stop, that she replied on the stand, “In some form.”
He recalled her testifying how Rodrigues had grabbed her hair and asked if “I like it like that.”
Asked how she reacted as he continued having sex, Cantu recounted, and she replied, “I just froze.”
Cantu contended there was, perhaps, a “motive or agenda” because another man she had been seeing at the time works for the auto shop that services the sheriff’s office vehicles and those of Presidential Protective Security, whose owner, Klauer, also testified for the prosecution. Cantu then noted how Klauer had authorized surveillance of Rodrigues, his superior in the sheriff’s office, for the private outfit.
“They want to do him and they want to do him bad,” Cantu said. “They’re unleashing the dogs.”
Cantu then questioned testimony from two investigators who took the stand, one who could not recollect what the defense contended were crucial dates in the witness’ report. He also noted how the sergeant who conducted the internal affairs investigations had come on board with the office shortly before Rodrigues’ departure and just a year later was promoted from deputy to sergeant.
Cantu in recalling the final two Jane Does called one of them, the witness who alleged she met him at Jerry’s, a “professional victim” while remarking how she is suing the defendant and the county over the allegations.
He noted how she provided an exact time when Rodrigues first came up to her car – 2:14 a.m. – and he went on at one point reading off her testimony while referring to it as “starting to sound like a novel.”
He went on to show the jury graphic pictures on the projector that she admitted to sending Rodrigues over e-mail after the suspected unlawful penetration incident. In a sarcastic tone, Cantu remarked, “I was suffering from rape trauma syndrome so I sent him these.”
Cantu finished by questioning how after the suspected rape, she testified she agreed to move in with Rodrigues because she needed a place to stay and he told her he was short on money.
“That’s just not believable,” he said.
In recounting the last accuser’s allegation, Cantu pointed out how she admitted lying to investigators a first time in 2007 before coming back a year later and alleging rape. He recalled a roommate of hers – a registered nurse – acknowledging she saw no evidence of physical injuries when she found out about the suspected incident shortly thereafter.
Editor’s note: In an attempt to best portray the tenor of the Michael Rodrigues rape trial, the Free Lance is posting a series of videos on closing statements, which wrapped up Wednesday morning. In this first part, see the beginning of both prosecutor Patrick Palacios and defense attorney Art Cantu’s final arguments.
