Forensics expert shows cell phone evidence
Videos and voice mails among contents of phone
By Bobbi Mlynar (Contact)
Monday, August 27, 2007
By Bobbi Mlynar
mlynar@emporiagazette.com
An expert in cell phone forensics brought in records of text messages, photographs and short videos taken from the phone of Raul Manuel Magallanez Jr., who is on trial in Lyon County District Court. The trial entered its third week today.
Magallanez has been charged with raping a 13-year-old girl, as well as about 60 counts of indecent liberties with minors, sodomizing minors, furnishing alcohol with illicit intent to minors, and one charge of aggravated intimidation of a witness
Kevin Ripa was brought in, out of traditional order, as a witness for the defense. The prosecution has not yet rested. Judge Lee Fowler said that because Ripa had come in from out of town, parties had agreed to let him testify in an effort to save time and money.
Ripa is director of computer forensics for Advanced Surveillance Group Inc. in Mount Clemens, Mich., president of Computer Evidence Recovery Co., in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and regularly presents seminars internationally about cell phone and computer forensics.
Ripa had recovered general records from the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card within the phone, and was able to find a number of text messages, photographs and two videos.
One of the videos showed a long-haired blond girl apparently acting out instructions from an audible voice: “Give me a sexy look, like, ‘you’re going to do it look.’”
Several voice mails also were recovered, including some with a man’s voice asking a young female to “absolutely promise” not to make up anything about him and her.
“You know we never had sex, right?” the male’s voice asked.
The female responded, “Yes.”
The male told the female, “That can get me in a lot of trouble.”
Ripa was to continue testifying this afternoon.
Early in the morning, the defense cross-examined a 17-year-old boy who had begun testifying on Friday.
The name of the young man will not be used, in order to protect the identities of the young people with whom he associated during his friendship with the accused. The young man was 15 and 16 years old when the alleged crimes were committed.
Kip Elliot, one of two attorneys for the defense, spent much of the cross-examination asking the young man to reiterate testimony given on Friday about events witnessed involving alcohol, drugs, and sexual intercourse with under-aged girls.
In the course of testifying, the young man talked about his own alcohol and drug use and having sexual intercourse with underaged girls, all while he associated with Magallanez.
Elliot asked the witness about the “derivative use immunity” that was granted him to testify in the case.
“You will not be prosecuted for any of your acts?” Elliot asked.
The witness said that he would not.
Comments
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Posted by drew88 (anonymous) on August 27, 2007 at 3:41 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think that we need to do everything possible to make sure that this man does not get away with out getting justice for all these minors that he has abused... these poor children will be scarred for life ..... I hope he roughts in jail......
Posted by paxsona (anonymous) on August 28, 2007 at 10:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
but you also need to think about something, those kids were doing it with him.. the kids need to be punished too
Posted by dhcc66 (anonymous) on August 28, 2007 at 11:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)
hey paxsona, would it still be ok if it were your kid?
Posted by tosie (anonymous) on August 28, 2007 at 12:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
paxsona- I think these kids are going through the punishment right now with this trial. This child rapist talked those kids into doing things- he made them think that he loved them. Kids are easily swayed and if you ask me some of this has to do with the parents of these children letting them stay out so late or allowing them to stay with friends they don't know very well, etc.
I know parents can't protect their kids from everything, but they do have the right to set rules and boundaries and these kids were obviously allowed to stay out later than what I would let my 13-15 yr old daughter stay out. When I was that age there was no midnight curfew- it was at the latest 8pm on school nights and 10pm on weekends. My mother took me and picked me up from where I was at. She also had the phone number, address, and met the parents of where I was going to be and spoke to them about our plans. This was not a question, but a rule and if she did not approve then I could not go. It just seems that parents are so relaxed these days about just letting their kids run wild and I believe that's why kids these days lack the respect that we traditionally had in the past. No matter what my opinion is, I wish the best for the kids and their families that once this is all over this man will go to jail and these families can go on with their lives with this being a learning situation. You always need to know and take seriously where and who your children are with and what they are doing, because there's a lot of manipulative people out there looking to prey upon the young children of our society.
Posted by dhcc66 (anonymous) on August 28, 2007 at 2:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
tosie,
i agree totally. my kids don't often get out of my sight. if they do it's with friends that i'm familiar with and whose parents i've met and discussed things with.
I can't totally blame anybody for what happened to these kids and i don't think anybody can cast judgement on them or their families except somebody who knows absolutely everything. I've seen kids from the best of families go the wrong way. Kids are victimized every day by adults, most of whom don't have any of the kid's best interests in mind and unless parents are ever watchful, the predators have that much better of a chance.
Hopefully the kids learn from this without too much of a mess being made of their lives.
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