State v. Grasso
| Decision Date | 09 April 2019 |
| Docket Number | AC 41167 |
| Court | Connecticut Court of Appeals |
| Parties | STATE of Connecticut v. Angela C. GRASSO |
Alice Osedach, senior assistant public defender, for the appellant (defendant).
Rocco A. Chiarenza, assistant state's attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Gail P. Hardy, state's attorney, and Vicki Melchiorre, supervisory assistant state's attorney, for the appellee (state).
Sheldon, Keller and Moll, Js.
The defendant, Angela C. Grasso, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered following a jury trial, of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm in violation of General Statutes § 53a-55a.1 The defendant claims that (1) the state failed to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt that she had acted in self-defense and (2) the trial court violated her rights to due process and to the effective assistance of counsel by denying the jury's request to rehear the closing arguments of the prosecutor and defense counsel at trial. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.
On the basis of the evidence presented at trial, the jury reasonably could have found the following facts. One evening in mid-March, 2014, the defendant stopped into a bar in Hartford, where she encountered an acquaintance, the victim, Jose Mendez. She had not spoken with the victim in many years. The defendant and the victim made eye contact, recognized one another, and engaged in light conversation. The victim flirted with the defendant, and he asked her for her telephone number. The defendant declined to give her number to the victim and stated to him that she was not interested in dating anyone. Then, the defendant and the victim parted ways.
At the time of the events underlying this appeal, the defendant had been employed for four years as a bail bondsperson by a bail bonds company. The day after the defendant spoke with the victim at the bar in Hartford, the defendant was in front of a Hartford court-house distributing business cards for the bail bonds company by which she was employed, when she encountered the victim as he was exiting the court-house. The victim then told the defendant that he might be in need of her professional services, and the defendant gave him her telephone number. Soon thereafter, the defendant and the victim spoke on the telephone and exchanged text messages. Before long, the victim expressed his romantic interest in the defendant, telling her that he had always had "a crush" on her and that she was "the woman of [his] dreams." On both days of the weekend that followed, the defendant drove to Hartford and spent time alone with the victim.
Thereafter, the defendant and the victim saw each other often. The victim expressed his desire to be in a romantic relationship with the defendant. In the defendant's words, the victim told her "all of the things that a girl would want to hear ...." This included his desire to help support her financially, to live with her, and to marry her. After the first week, their relationship became sexual in nature. The defendant permitted the victim to spend the night with her at her home, but only after her two young children had fallen asleep.
Approximately one week after the relationship began, the victim, who was unemployed, told the defendant that his automobile needed to be repaired. The defendant paid for a rental automobile for the victim to use from March 28 through March 31, 2014. After the victim returned the rented automobile, however, his automobile needed additional repairs. The defendant then paid for a second rental automobile for the victim to use from April 2 through April 9, 2014.2
The defendant told the victim that she was not rich and could barely afford to pay her rent. She said that she was "obsessed" with money because, only a few months before she began her relationship with the victim, she was having difficulty obtaining food for herself and her children. Nevertheless, the defendant spent in excess of $ 500 on automobile rentals for the victim's benefit. In that same time frame, moreover, the defendant gave the victim $ 1000 after he told her that he needed money with which to pay his bills, rent, and car repair expenses.
During the morning of April 8, 2014, while repairs were being made to a tire on the defendant's automobile, the victim and the defendant visited the victim's sister at her home. Prior to the visit, the victim told the defendant that it would be nice if she befriended his sister. When the visit was over, however, the victim accused the defendant of flirting with his sister and wanting to have sexual relations with her, which the defendant vehemently denied. As the victim drove the defendant from his sister's residence to the repair facility to retrieve her automobile, he became violently angry. He called the defendant a "stupid bitch," threatened her life if she ever touched his sister, and spat in her face. While he was driving on the highway, he tossed her cell phone out of the moving automobile. Soon after she retrieved her automobile, the defendant went to a store and obtained another telephone.
The victim and the defendant spoke again later that day. The victim apologized to the defendant and explained that a prior girlfriend of his had engaged in a sexual relationship with his sister. The defendant visited the victim later that day. In text messages exchanged between the defendant and the victim during the evening hours of April 8, 2014, into the early morning hours of April 9, 2014, both the defendant and the victim questioned their relationship. The victim suggested that the defendant find someone who could "buy and give [her] the world" and think about whether she really wanted to be with him. The defendant expressed her frustration with the way the victim was treating her. She told him that she was upset with him and that her hands were still shaking as a result of his behavior earlier that day. She said that, despite the fact that the victim claimed to love her, he did not really know her and that he was causing her pain. In her text messages to the victim late in the evening on April 8, 2014, the defendant suggested that the victim was welcome to come over to her house. He did not do so.
Shortly after 7 a.m. on April 9, 2014, the victim sent the defendant a text message in which he wished her a good morning. When the defendant did not reply immediately, the victim accused her of being with another man, told her to enjoy her life, and told her that he would leave the rental automobile in his aunt's driveway. The defendant replied that she had not been with anyone and did not reply immediately to his text message because she was taking a shower. The defendant remarked that the victim was "paranoid." The defendant drove her son to school and ran an errand for work. In numerous telephone calls and text messages throughout the day, the disagreement between the defendant and the victim continued to escalate.
In a series of text messages sent by the victim to the defendant at or about 8:55 a.m., he called the defendant a "nasty bitch ...." He threatened to crash the automobile she had rented for him and mockingly observed that his doing so would ruin her credit. The defendant called the victim a "little boy" and warned him not to threaten her.3 She stated that although she had spent $ 1500 on him, she had learned his "[true] colors."
Shortly thereafter, the victim sent the defendant another threatening text message, this time suggesting that he was going to disclose sensitive information that would hurt the company for which she worked, thereby jeopardizing her employer, her continued employment, or both. He warned her not to turn to the police for help.4 In reply, the defendant told him to return the rented automobile.
The victim once again accused the defendant of cheating on him. He suggested that he had contracted a sexually transmitted disease
from her and that they should both be tested. The victim once more suggested that he would retaliate against her by exposing negative information that she had shared with him about the bail bonds company for which she worked.5 In a text message, the defendant attempted to defuse the victim's anger. She replied that he was not thinking clearly, she had never cheated on him, and they should act like adults. The defendant implored the victim to permit her to continue to earn a living.6
In text messages that followed, the victim suggested that he was about to disclose damaging information about her employer. He swore that he would "pull up [in] front of the court house and put u down to all the bondsman out there," adding, "try me I have the pictures and texts to back it up ...." When the defendant asked what she had done to the victim, he replied by demanding an additional $ 600 from her.7
Despite the victim's repeated threats to reveal detrimental information about the bail bonds company, the defendant did not ask the victim what information he was threatening to reveal or otherwise reflect confusion with respect to his threat. Instead, the defendant referred to the victim as a "snitch," and reminded him that she already had given him both money and a place to stay.8 The victim assured her that she would not leave him stranded without money or an automobile. After the defendant and the victim spoke on the telephone, the victim sent the defendant yet another text message in which he threatened to jeopardize her employment, warning her: "U hang up on me one more time kiss ur job by ...." He reiterated his demand for more money, telling her that he needed $ 600 by noon that day and that he was tired of letting her think that she could take advantage of him.
During the morning of April 9, 2014, the defendant communicated by text messaging with Jose Cotto. Cotto was her former boyfriend and the father of one of her two children. In a text message that the defendant sent to Cotto at 10:19 a.m., after Cotto discussed his desire to provide...
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