Judge dismisses six charges against Magallanez
Prosecution rests in sex case
By Bobbi Mlynar
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Alleged sex offender Raul Manuel Magallanez Jr. has six fewer charges against him as a result of action taken this morning in Lyon County District Court.
Magallanez entered the trial with about 60 charges against him, including rape of a 13-year-old and multiple counts of rapes of two girls 14 to 16 years old, aggravated sodomy, aggravated indecent liberties with a minor, furnishing alcohol to minors for illicit purposes, and one count of aggravated intimidation of a witness.
The charges against Magallanez were contained in three separate cases that have been combined into one trial.
After the prosecution rested when court resumed this morning, defense attorneys had asked Judge Lee Fowler to dismiss charges.
Fowler dismissed two counts of rape, three counts of furnishing alcohol for illicit purposes and one count of aggravated sodomy. Throughout the trial, Fowler has keep a log of whether criteria had been met on each of the charges.
The judge said that though the allegations of multiple sexual encounters had been made by witnesses, testimony of several sexual episodes could not be connected to a few specific charges, which did not contain enough detail to distinguish one from another.
“As I recall, she went from the first occurrence to something other than that that was tied to another descriptor,” Fowler said. He acknowledged, for example, that when the witness testified to multiple instances of sexual intercourse, logically one of those would be the second time it happened. However, the details she gave could not be connected to the second count of rape because of its lack of detail.
“It’s got to be more specific when you’re charging someone with this many charges,” Fowler said.
Defense attorneys brought in two former employers who brought records of Magallanez’s employment at a pizza restaurant and a manufacturing plant, where he worked approximately two weeks’ each.
Each of the three young women testified that they knew the defendant during some portion of the times in question at the trial. Each said they had “hung out” with him and his friends and that Magallanez had never given them alcohol or drugs.
Witness No. 1, now 17, said that she had been friends Magallanez’s nephew. The witness had known Girl No. 1 since first grade. They had mutual friends, but were not friends themselves.
“I didn’t like her,” Witness No. 1 said. “... She’s always bothered him and his nephew a lot.”
She said that she had not seen Magallanez with a video camera.
“I drank alcohol before, but not at his house,” she said.
Witness No. 2, now 18, lived in an adjoining county when she met Magallanez at a car show when she was 15. They became friends and she “spent lots of time with him” after she got a car around her 16th birthday anniversary.
The witness testified that Girl No. 1 had pestered the defendant after the incident at the adult store, and that she could hear the alleged victim’s voice when Magallanez talked to her on his cell phone.
“She still called continually, over and over and over again,” the witness said. “She threatened to press legal charges against him if he didn’t stop hanging out with other girls.”
Girl No. 1 was dating someone else, the witness testified, and said that the girl’s boyfriend “came up and was threatening Manuel and (his nephew) and said they were going to ‘beat the crap out of him’ if he didn’t quit talking to (Girl No. 1).”
Witness 2 said that she had no knowledge of what the defendant did when he was with Girl No. 1.
“I just know she called a lot and was really jealous of whenever he would talk to any other girls besides her,” the witness said.
A third girl, now 19, was testifying on Magallanez’s behalf when court recessed for lunch.