Pentek v. Commonwealth
| Docket Number | 0971-21-4 |
| Decision Date | 30 August 2022 |
| Parties | LASZLO PENTEK v. COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA |
| Court | Virginia Court of Appeals |
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY Daniel E. Ortiz, Judge [1]
George L. Freeman, IV, for appellant.
Katherine Quinlan Adelfio, Assistant Attorney General (Jason S. Miyares, Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Present: Judges O'Brien, Malveaux and Callins Argued at Alexandria, Virginia
Laszlo Pentek ("appellant") was convicted in a jury trial of first-degree murder, in violation of Code § 18.2-32 and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, in violation of Code § 18.2-53.1. On appeal, he argues the trial court erred in denying his motion to strike the evidence, for two reasons: (1) because the evidence did not exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence and did not demonstrate that he committed an act which caused the victim's death, and (2) because the evidence was insufficient to prove that he used a firearm in the commission of a murder. For the following reasons, we affirm the trial court.
"In accordance with familiar principles of appellate review, the facts will be stated in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, the prevailing party at trial." Carter v. Commonwealth, 300 Va. 371, 374 (2021) (quoting Scott v. Commonwealth, 292 Va. 380, 381 (2016)). "On appeal, we discard any of appellant's conflicting evidence, and regard as true all credible evidence favorable to the Commonwealth and all inferences that may reasonably be drawn from that evidence." Walker v. Commonwealth, 74 Va.App. 475, 481 (2022).
In January 2017, appellant and his wife, Donna Pentek, had been married for about fifteen years. The couple shared a home together with their fourteen-year-old daughter, T.P., and their younger son, K.P.[2]
At approximately 3:30 p.m. on January 6, 2017, T.P. returned home from school. When she let herself into the home, T.P. heard her father, appellant, yelling, Appellant was in the bathtub in the upstairs bathroom.
T.P.'s 911 call was recorded and played for the jury at trial. T.P. initially told the dispatcher, "My dad-I just came home from school and he's in the tub and he's hurt." Asked if anyone was with her father, T.P. replied, "My mom's here, I'm just getting her up now, she was sleeping I think." T.P. testified that she did not mean that she was attempting to get Donna up; rather, she was at the bathroom door and "was starting to walk towards [her] mom."
When T.P. entered Donna's bedroom, she T.P. then exclaimed, Asked what was wrong with her mother, T.P. replied,
The dispatcher asked where Donna was "bleeding from," and T.P. responded, Asked if there was a gun near her mother, T.P. replied, T.P. testified that there was "some kind of comforter" near her mother and that she had moved it "slightly" or "a little bit" to look for a gun. However, neither in touching her mother nor in moving the comforter did T.P. get any blood on her hands.
T.P. told the dispatcher she would go and check on her father, and then stated, The dispatcher asked T.P. to ask appellant what had happened. When T.P. did so, appellant replied, "Oh my God, help me, please."
Officers from the Fairfax County Police Department soon arrived at the home. Officer Jacob Jackson entered the master bedroom and saw Donna lying on the bed. He checked her neck for a pulse but found none. Jackson later testified that police officers did not touch any items near Donna's body, because she was clearly dead. Jackson then moved to the bathroom, where he found appellant lying in a bloody bathtub. Jackson noted a small puncture wound in appellant's abdomen and called for medical assistance.
Minhtoan Nguyen, a technician with the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, testified that he arrived at the home and checked Donna's left wrist for a pulse. In doing so, he stated, he did not have to move Donna because her left wrist "was readily available."
Another police officer, Courtney Young, entered the master bedroom but did not touch Donna's body. Young then stationed himself in the bedroom to ensure that no one disturbed the room until crime scene investigators could "document the scene . . . as it was." Young testified that during this time, no one moved Donna's body.
Appellant was taken to the hospital and treated for a gunshot wound to his lower left abdomen, an injury to his left leg, and a laceration between the fingers of his left hand.
At trial, the Commonwealth introduced into evidence numerous photographs of Donna's body and the master bedroom where she was found. The photographs depicted Donna lying on the bed on her right side with a white comforter covering her abdomen and legs. Her right arm lay beneath her head and extended straight out across the bed. Donna's upper left arm lay along her side, and her lower left arm was folded across her abdomen. Her left hand was tucked partway under her body with a pistol in its palm. That hand was covered in blood, which was smeared across both the hand and left forearm. There was also blood on Donna's left palm beneath the grip of the pistol. An iPad was propped on the bed in front of Donna's face. Donna's left temple exhibited a gunshot wound and a large pool of blood covered the bed beneath and around Donna's upper body.
Detective Sherry O'Brien, the lead crime scene detective who investigated the shootings, testified at trial as an expert in crime scene documentation and investigation, including blood pattern and stain analysis, and in bullet or projectile trajectories. When she entered the master bedroom O'Brien noted that some things "were just kind of catching me as odd," including "Donna's body and how she's positioned and some of the bloodstain." O'Brien explained that had the pistol been in Donna's hand when her hand fell to the bed, the blood would have pooled around the gun and there would have been a "void," or blood-free area, "in the hand under the gun." O'Brien noted that there was blood on both the back of Donna's left hand and her left palm and concluded that Donna's left hand "at some point was in contact with a blood source.
And then . . . it was moved out of that blood source." Thus, it appeared to O'Brien "that the firearm was placed in the hand and then [the hand was] placed in that position," with "the tip [of the firearm] kind of under her stomach a little."
O'Brien further testified that Donna's left thumb was "kind of saturated [in blood] on top of the firearm" and that "the thumb [had been] placed on top," because Thus, it was inconsistent with the pooled blood that "you have lack of blood on the firearm with a bloody source on top of that firearm." O'Brien also noted a bloodstain on the back of Donna's forearm and stated that "[a]t some point something that was bearing blood came in contact with the forearm." This fact was also inconsistent with the pistol having been in Donna's hand when it dropped to the bed because "the blood would have just pooled around [the pistol]; it wouldn't have traveled up her arm." O'Brien opined that the bloodstain evidence was inconsistent with the position in which Donna had been found. She stated that "[a]t some point [Donna's] hand was in contact with some blood source," but "that [it] was removed from the blood source and placed in this position, because it doesn't make sense to be in this position with how the scene is laid out." O'Brien also opined that "at some point . . . the firearm was moved." No fingerprints were found on the pistol.
The Commonwealth also introduced into evidence numerous photographs of the bathroom. O'Brien testified that police officers found four "defects," or "abnormalit[ies] . . . like a [projectile] hole," in the wall above the bathtub. The hole that was lowest on the wall and thus closest to the side of the bathtub exhibited "some red stain that's consistent with blood [and] some tissue." There were also two holes in the outside edge of the bathtub and one in the bottom of the bathtub. When police officers drained the bloody water from the bathtub, they found a pistol.
Detective John Vickery, Jr. of the Fairfax County Police Department was the lead investigator for the shootings. He testified that he located an open gun safe in appellant's bedroom, which was a different room than the master bedroom. Appellant later acknowledged that the safe was his and had been used to store two Glock handguns. Police officers also found bankruptcy documents in the couple's living room.
Detective Jason Friedman of the Fairfax County Police Department testified at trial as an expert in digital forensics. He stated that he had examined the iPad that was propped in front of Donna and determined what applications had been running on the device. They included a calendar displaying children's athletic practices scheduled for January 6 2017, an email application, a child's geometry...
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