Trial begins for Raul M. Magallanez Jr.
Accused of multiple sex crimes against young teens
By Bobbi Mlynar
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Attorneys’ opening statements and testimony from law enforcement officers filled the morning hours of a trial into charges that Raul Manuel Magallanez Jr. engaged in sexual activities with minors, including one 13-year-old girl and two 14-year-olds girls. The mother of one of the girls was on the stand when the court recessed for lunch.
Among the charges against Magallanez, in three cases that will be tried as one case, are rape of a 13-year-old, 13 counts of rape, four counts of aggravated criminal sodomy, criminal sodomy, incident solicitation of child, sexual exploitation of child, 10 counts furnishing alcohol to a minor for illicit purposes, four counts of rape, three counts of aggravated indecent liberties, sexual exploitation of a child, five counts of furnishing alcohol to minor for illicit purposes, aggravated intimidation of a witness, and other similar charges.
The case is being tried before Judge Lee Fowler in Lyon County District Court.
Because of the age of the teens involved, their names will not be used in stories about the trial, nor will the names of their parents and the minor friends who testify, in order to prevent the girls from being identified.
Prior to the start of the trial, Fowler brought one juror into the courtroom to inquire whether she had talked about the case at her workplace on Monday.
Fowler told the juror that someone had reported overhearing her discuss the case. The juror, who was not identified, said that she had notified her company’s scheduling employee that she would be gone for the trial, but that she had not discussed the case. She remains on the jury.
In her opening statement, Assistant County Attorney Amy Aranda told the jury that the state would prove that from September 2005 to November 2006, Magallanez, then 31, committed sex acts with the three girls 27 times.
“He picked them all very carefully,” Aranda said. “They were all three young girls who didn’t really fit in at school. They didn’t fit in at a time when it meant the most to be accepted and to be a part of something.”
The girls had been dependable and trusted by their parents, she said.
“ And then the defendant came along and he changed them. He groomed them to satisfy their needs. ... He talked to them daily on the cell phone, text-messaged them for hours and hours day after day.”
Aranda said he also contacted them through Yahoo! and MySpace.com on the Internet.
“He talked for hours at night and after school when their parents weren’t home yet. He talked to them secretly,” Aranda said. “He also knew the same young teen-aged kids that they knew. He hung out with them at his house and at various places around town. ...
“He boosted their self-esteem at a time when they were inexperienced and insecure. Occasionally, he’d start talking about sex to see how they reacted,” she said.
Aranda said he slowly befriended the girls, individually, and told them he understood them when their parents did not. He had parties at his house and provided alcohol and marijuana to them.
“He lowered their inhibitions until he got what he wanted,” she said. “They cared about him and he knew it, and he used that to his advantage.”
Aranda said that Girl No. 1 met Magallanez through his nephew, who was the girl’s boyfriend. The defendant began taking the girl places and spending time with her, she said.
“He’d give her alcohol and marijuana and soon they began a sexual relationship, engaging in sexual intercourse and sodomy on a regular basis,” Aranda said.
When the girl’s mother learned of her relationship with the defendant, she obtained a stalking order against him, but the defendant continued to see the girl, despite charges pending against him. He was alleged to have taken the girl to Whispers adult store, where he lent her money and she purchased a vibrator and warming lotion.
Magallanez was charged in that case and was convicted of promoting obscenities to minors. He went to jail early in 2006 and on April 12, 2006, when he was released, he again contacted Girl No. 1 and met her that day. They resumed a sexual relationship that continued through much of 2006.
“When (the nephew) was there, he’d suggest threesomes ... he even videotaped them,” Aranda said.
She told the jury that Magallanez expanded his acquaintances to include other teenaged boys who could bring him into contact with other young girls.
He continued the same pattern of behavior with Girl No. 2, Aranda said.
“He’d meet her down the street, pick her up in his car,” she said.
Magallanez and Girl No. 2 had sex six times in approximately three months in the fall of 2006, and also videotaped the girl and two other teenaged boys having sex.
“He got (the girl) drunk,” Aranda said. “He had her strip naked and dance for these boys. He used her.”
Around that time, she said, he met a 13-year-old girl and began the same grooming pattern, contacting her frequently and telling her she was pretty. He sent her pictures and asked him to take photos of herself in underwear, which she did, Aranda said. She also would sneak out of her home to meet him.
“That didn’t go as planned because on Oct. 4, 2006, he got caught,” Aranda said. “Her older brother ... saw (the girl) in the defendant’s car.”
The brother knew how old Magallanez was and that he’d “hung out” with other teenagers in the past. The brother told their parents, who forbid her to have contact with him and took away her cell phone for a couple of weeks. The contact did not end, however, and the defendant became more secretive getting in touch with her.
“He talked about how he would like to have sex with her,” Aranda said.
On Nov. 1, Magallanez allegedly met the 13-year-old at her babysitting job, parked his vehicle outside and called to let her know that he was there.
“She came out, met him in the car and they had sex in the back seat,” Aranda said. “That was the first time. She lost her virginity and she thought it was OK because she cared about him.”
When she later told her parents and law-enforcement officers about the sexual encounter, she told them it happened on Oct. 4, the day her brother saw her with Magallanez and told her parents.
“Eventually, she would tell that it occurred on Nov. 1, while she was babysitting,” Aranda said, explaining that she did not want her parents to know she had been with him after they had forbidden her to see him.
Aranda said that Magallanez tried to “cover his tracks” and convince her to say that nothing had happened. He called a friend of the girl to ask her to try to find out what was happening and sent himself an e-mail from Girl No. 3’s e-mail account, recanting her story.
He also went to police to report that the girl was harassing him and wanting to have sex, Aranda said.
“This 31-year-old man worked his way into the lives of three teenaged girls, convincing them to have sex with them,” Aranda said. “There’s no scientific evidence, no DNA. There’s no smoking gun, so to speak.”
The testimony of the girls and their friends, she said, would tell the same story “over and over and over,” and there will be “hundreds of pages of phone records, e-mail records, MySpace records.”
Defense attorney Julia Spainhour told the jury in her opening statement that Magallanez is “completely innocent of all of these charges, based on scientific evidence. And that scientific evidence is a telephone record, a Yahoo! record, a MySpace record.
“All of these records are going to show patterns and the patterns are not going to point to Manuel Magallanez, they’re going to point to teenagers,” Spainhour said.
“Each one of those phone calls is an electronic message that’s recorded somewhere on a machine and that machine doesn’t go in and make up or alter a date that data was received. You’re going to be able to review that evidence and figure out for yourself whether it corrorobates testimony...”
Spainhour said that the evidence would show that the girls and other teens who will testify all knew each other and ran around in the same circles.
Spainhour said that the teens were closely connected by cell phones, text-messaging and other communications.
“The evidence will show that instead of implicating that friend .. they decide to throw Mr. M under the bus instead,” Spainhour said. “After all, it seems to be who the police are interested in blaming.”
Spainhour said the jury will notice that when a revelation is made by one of the young people “there is some motivating event that prompts the disclosure, and the evidence will show that the motivating event that prompts the disclosure is going to be important to the credibility of that witness.”
Testimony in the case began with Emporia Police Officer Kelly R. Davis, who was called to Girl No. 1’s home after her mother learned that she had purchased some items at an adult novelty store, he said.
Davis said that the girl had said she had gone with her boyfriend’s uncle to Whispers.
“She’d asked for money from him to buy condoms, but instead for a vibrator and lotion,” Davis said.
Former EPD officer Andy Surmeier, now with the Lawrence Police Department, went to the girl’s home later in connection with the same call.
He testified that he was aware of Magallanez’s approximate age and described the girl was approximately 5 feet tall.
“Was there anything about her that would make you think she looked older than 14?” Aranda asked.
“No, nothing at all,” Surmeier responded.
After the end of the testimony, County Attorney Marc Goodman entered into evidence Magallanez’s prior conviction for promoting obscenities to a minor, as a result of the purchases at Whispers.
Spainhour earlier today had objected to allowing the conviction into evidence, and to allowing an amendment to one of the charges, which changed the date of one of the charges by almost one month. Fowler allowed Spainhour to have a continuing objection to the Whispers incident.
Goodman then questioned Girl No. 1’s mother about her daughter’s relationship with Magallanez.
The woman said that around the time the girl began dating Magallanez’s nephew, she noticed drastic changes in her daughter’s attitude.
“She became very belligerent,” the woman said. “She would not do anything I told her to do, she was sneaking out of the house, she was not doing her schoolwork...”
The girl eventually confessed she had been sneaking out of the house with her boyfriend and Magallanez.
“She told me at one point that she was drinking a lot and I took her to counseling at the mental health center,” the woman said. “And the counselor there tried to tell me she had a drug and alcohol problem.”
She said she did not want to believe that was true, but she believed the defendant and his nephew were the sources for the drugs and alcohol. She said that she told Magallanez several times to stay away from her daughter, and “he just refused to listen. He continued to call. He would talk to her daily on the computer and set up times. ...
“He was coming by so much that my ex-husband and I recognized the sound of the car,” Mother No. 1 said. “We would go and look and she would be gone.”
She described putting locks on the girl’s windows and an alarm outside her door. She slept on a mattress outside the girl’s door and called police over numerous times when the girl would leave.
She said that she was concerned over her daughter’s mental health issues, and that the girl was cutting herself and not going to school.
“I had the police come over and actually get her out of bed and say, ‘You are going to school today,’” the woman said.
ADD ON AFTERNOON SESSION
She said that for a time, DCCCA came to their home every week or two because of her repeated calls to the police regarding her daughter’s activities. Mother #1 also said that she had taken the girl for counseling at the Mental Health Center of East Central Kansas.
“(My daughter) was uncooperative and would not speak to the therapist,” the woman said. “She was very unwilling to participate and it finally got to the point where the therapist told me if she’s not willing to participate and doesn’t want to help herself, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
She said that her daughter historically had had social anxieties but they had a good relationship prior to the involvement with Magallanez.
In November and December of 2005, the mother said, Magallanez was still calling and coming by the house. The girl came home occasionally smelling like she had been drinking. The mother had been surprised when her daughter said how many shots of vodka she had taken, and that vodka was a drink of choice instead of beer.
“I got up at 4 o’clock and went into her room and she was obviously drunk,” Mother #1 said, recounting the incident. “She said that she had been out with Manuel and (his nephew).”
She said that she had enlisted the help of a relative, who is a computer technician, to add a keyboard device to the family’s computer so the girl’s Yahoo! Messaging could be tracked.
Mother #1 also said that Manuel and another young man had taken the girl to Allen to help her run away from home. The girl was found about 24 hours later, and was taken to the Bob Johnson detention home in Hutchinson to stay for a few days.
She also spent time in Stormont-Vail West, for juveniles who are having mental health problems.
“After Bob Johnson and after Stormont-Vail, in your mind, were things better?” Goodman asked.
“No,” the mother replied. “She continued to run off and the same behaviors that she had been doing...”
During cross-examination, Spainhour asked Mother #1 if she believes the behavior and school problems were directly related to Magallanez.
“I believe that (her) behavior problems escalated after she started doing drugs and alcohol that were provided by Manuel,” Mother #1 said.
Spainhour asked her if she had gotten the restraining order because of the Whispers incident.
“I would say that was probably the last straw, yeah,” the mother said.
Girl #1 also spoke with counselors at the Advocacy Center at SOS on two occasions, once on Nov. 1, 2005, and once on Feb. 13, 2006. Tapes of those interviews were presented into evidence and played for the jury.
In the November interview, the girl denied having sexual relationships with either Magallanez or his nephew. She said that her mother did not want her talking with the defendant.
“She just thinks I shouldn’t be talking to him because he’s a lot older than me,” Girl #1 said. “... He’s 29. ... He definitely doesn’t act like an ordinary 29-year-old would.”
The girl told interviewer Angela Proehl, special investigator, that Magallanez was not married but did have children.
“He can’t even see his daughter,” the girl said. “I don’t know what’s the deal with that.”
During the interview, the girl told Proehl that she was in love with Magallanez’s nephew.
“I care about Manuel a lot but I don’t love him like I love (his nephew),” the girl said.
She said she “kind of” had sexual feelings about Magallanez, and added that ‘doesn’t sound right because of his age.”
In another portion of the interview tape from Nov. 1, 2005, Proehl left the room and a DCCCA social worker, Jessica Bradshaw, came in to talk with the girl.
Bradshaw reminded her that earlier, when DCCCA was working with the family, she had told Bradshaw that she was having sexual relations.
“We all kind of got into a fight and I just said that,” the girl responded.
She said that she was afraid of getting the two men into trouble because she didn’t want to lose them.
“I know that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” the girl said.
She explained that on the Whispers shopping trip she had purchased “just sexual things” and was saving them.
“I didn’t use them or anything,” she said.
When asked whether she thought Manuel would wait around until she was 18, she responded, “Yeah.”
“Why?” she was asked.
“Because that’s what he told me,” she said, “that he cares about me.”
During the recording from Feb. 13, 2006, Girl #1 said that she had started dating Magallanez’s nephew in the month of July 2005 and that she had begun “messing around with Manuel” in about October of that year.
“I’d get mad at (the nephew) and then to get back at him, I’d go do things with Manuel,” the girl said.
She said that her first sexual encounter with the defendant was in his home.
“Well, the first time we were really drunk,” she said, explaining that Magallanez had given her vodka and wind coolers.
“Like every single time we did something sexual, I was either drunk or high,” the girl said.
She said that the encounters with him and his nephew sometimes were in cars, both in the country and in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
She said that the first time Magallanez had videotaped her, she was having sex with his nephew, and later Magallanez had joined them.
“I saw on the tape,” the girl said.
She said the defendant also often asked her to strip for him so he could videotape it. She refused, she said, because she worried he would show the video to other people.
The girl also said that Magallanez had told her not to tell the cops or anyone about their sexual relationship.
“He told me once that if I told anybody I had sex with him and he had to go to prison, when he got out, he’d probably shoot me,” she said.
Magallanez then told her he was joking.
The girl also said that other girls had told her that if she did anything that caused Magallanez to go to prison, they would beat her up or kill her.
“That’s why I’ve been really afraid to talk about this,” Girl #1 said.
During cross-examination, Spainhour mentioned a discrepancy between the girl’s statements. On the first recording, Spainhour pointed out, the girl said that Magallanez was 29 years old. The next time she was interviewed a few months later, the girl says that she did not know he was 30 and thought that he was 21.