People v. Roldan

• Decision Date: 14 September 2015
• Docket Number: Docket No. 1–13–1962.
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Luis ROLDAN, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

42 N.E.3d 836

The PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff–Appellee
v.
Luis ROLDAN, Defendant–Appellant.

Docket No. 1–13–1962.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, First Division.

Rule 23 Filed March 31, 2015.
Rehearing denied Sept. 10, 2015.
Opinion Filed Sept. 14, 2015.

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Frank Vasquez, of Chicago, for appellant.

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Anita M. Alvarez, State's Attorney, of Chicago (Alan J. Spellberg, Mary L. Boland, and Sarah L. Simpson, Assistant State's Attorneys, of counsel), for the People.

OPINION

Justice CUNNINGHAM delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

¶ 1 Following a joint bench trial with codefendant Abraham Ramos (Ramos), who is not a party to this appeal, defendant Luis Roldan was found guilty of two counts of criminal sexual assault (CSA) (720 ILCS 5/11–1.20 (West 2012) ), and sentenced to consecutive terms of four years' imprisonment. On appeal, defendant contends that the evidence was insufficient to prove him guilty of this offense beyond a reasonable doubt.

¶ 2 The evidence adduced at trial shows that defendant and Ramos were charged with CSA in connection with events that took place on March 6, 2011, in Cicero, Illinois. That evening, Esperanza Castellanos, Yesenia Guerrero, and the victim, J.T., planned to go to a movie theater in Cicero to celebrate Yesenia's seventeenth birthday. When they could not decide which movie to see, they called Ramos, who arrived at the movie theater with his female cousin, Isamar. The group then drove to the home of Ramos' aunt, where he lived at the time.

¶ 3 J.T. testified that when they were in the living room, Ramos asked whose birthday it was, and then their ages. She told him she was 16, Yesenia told him she had just turned 17, and J.T. did not recall Esperanza answering that question.

¶ 4 At that point, Ramos gave Yesenia a one-liter bottle of Smirnoff vodka that was a third to halfway full and told her it was her birthday present. Yesenia started drinking straight out of the bottle, and J.T. also took a drink from it. J.T. testified that she had never consumed alcohol prior to that day. When Yesenia finished that bottle of vodka, Ramos produced an identical, but unopened one-liter bottle of Smirnoff vodka for them to drink.

¶ 5 Defendant, whom J.T. had never met before, arrived at the home of Ramos' aunt with orange juice, which he, Ramos, J.T., Yesenia, and Esperanza mixed with the vodka and used to play a drinking game that involved playing cards which dictated the length of the drink to be taken. She testified that Ramos provided each person with a cup that was about 8 to 10 inches tall and filled with 1 to 2 inches of vodka. He prepared the first round of drinks, then each girl either filled her own cup with the vodka and orange juice mixture, or he filled the cup for her.

¶ 6 After playing the drinking game for about an hour, the group ran out of orange juice and decided to go to Walgreens to buy more. Each of the five participants had finished two to four cups of the orange juice and vodka mixture at that point, with Yesenia drinking the most and J.T. a little less.

¶ 7 J.T. further testified that Yesenia wanted to accompany the others to Walgreens, but they decided she was too drunk to come along and made her sleep on the couch in the living room. On the way to Walgreens, J.T. walked with defendant, while Esperanza walked ahead of them with Ramos. J.T. testified that she was having trouble walking, and recalled that she and defendant kissed inside the store. She also remembered arguing with Ramos outside the store, but her next recollection was hearing “a lot of loud noise” and sitting in a chair in the hospital the following morning where she had her blood drawn. She did not remember returning to the home of Ramos' aunt, speaking to detectives, arriving at the hospital

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that night, or having sex with defendant.

¶ 8 Yesenia essentially testified to the same sequence of events as J.T., which brought them to the home of Ramos' aunt, where he inquired into their ages, and they played a drinking game. She also testified that she and J.T. were best friends prior to the events of March 6, 2011, but were no longer friends. She stated that J.T. did not seem drunk earlier in the evening, but later that night, she observed J.T. asleep on a bed in the home of Ramos' aunt. Yesenia testified that she had the most to drink that night, and J.T., in comparison, drank a little less than her, but more than the other three. When Esperanza and Ramos returned from the store, she woke up and realized that J.T. and defendant were not with them. She attempted to call J.T. on her cell phone, but J.T. did not answer, so Yesenia called her friend, Jose, to help her look for J.T.

¶ 9 When J.T. returned to the home of Ramos' aunt, Yesenia noticed that J.T. seemed fine and did not look like she was drunk. Jose then took Yesenia home, where her parents noticed that something was wrong. They contacted J.T.'s parents and, with Yesenia, returned to the home of Ramos' aunt. Upon arrival, Yesenia discovered J.T. lying on the bed in a boy's bedroom wearing boy's pants, which were not the pants she had been wearing earlier in the evening. When neither Yesenia nor J.T.'s mother could wake J.T., they called police.

¶ 10 Cicero police officer Walberto Galarza arrived on the scene about 11 p.m. and observed a girl lying on a bed in one of the bedrooms. Officer Galarza attempted to rouse the girl by shaking her by the shoulders, but she did not wake up so he called the paramedics. They were able to rouse J.T., but as they led her to a wheelchair, she appeared to need help walking. Officer Galarza noted that J.T. was belligerent and swearing at her parents as she was taken away by the paramedics. Officer Galarza noted in his police report that J.T. was shouting only at her parents and did not shout anything toward Ramos, whom he arrested.

¶ 11 Assistant State's Attorney Nicolas Kantas testified that he spoke with defendant at the Cicero police department and that their conversation was reduced to a typewritten statement signed by defendant. Therein, defendant stated that he was 21 years old and that during the walk back to the house from Walgreens, J.T. repeatedly told him that she wanted to have sex with him. Defendant told J.T. he would not have sex with her because “she would regret it in the morning because she was drunk.” However, J.T. kept asking him, and he eventually had sex with her in his car, which was parked a couple of blocks down the street from the home of Ramos' aunt. Before doing so, he left J.T. in his car while he retrieved a condom and, after having sex with her, he left the condom on the floor of his car and walked back to the house with J.T. Defendant then returned home because his mother was calling for him. Defendant stated that throughout his sexual encounter with J.T., she seemed coherent and responsive.

¶ 12 Assistant State's Attorney Kantas further testified to his interview with Ramos and published his typewritten, signed statement to the court.¹ Ramos stated that when J.T. returned to his aunt's home after the trip to Walgreens, she attempted

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to kiss him, but he told her “to stop because she had too much vodka.” When J.T. again attempted to kiss Ramos, he took her to one of the empty bedrooms in the house, where they had sex for about 10 minutes. Ramos' typewritten statement further explained that he eventually opened the door to the bedroom because Esperanza had been knocking on it for several minutes attempting to speak with J.T. Esperanza and J.T. spoke briefly while J.T. was lying on the bed wearing a pair of boy's pants Ramos had given her. Shortly thereafter, J.T.'s parents arrived and Officer Galarza arrested Ramos.

¶ 13 The parties then stipulated that, if called to testify, Angela Kaeshamer, a DNA analyst employed by the Illinois State Police, would state that she received a condom retrieved from the floor of defendant's car by the Cicero police. She discovered human male DNA on the condom that she could say with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty belonged to defendant, and not Ramos. She would also testify that the non-sperm fraction of the DNA collected represented a sample from which J.T. could not be excluded.

¶ 14 Ramos' cousin, Isamar, testified on behalf of...