Case No. 1249090 – Caterino E.
DISMISSED
In a convoluted tale of intrigue, our client Caterino was falsely acccused of threatening his sister with putting something illegal in her car to make her “go down“. Caterino certainly had motivation for retaliating since, at the time of the alleged statement, he was under investigation by police for an alleged sexual assault of his sister’s daughter. The daughter ultimately confessed to her lies after relatives discovered the truth: she was covering for her own deception in persuading her uncle to take her to her boyfriend’s house – forbidden by Mom – by saying it was a girlfriend’s house. So Uncle Caterino became the scapegoat: niece had to flee uncle’s assaults by taking refuge at boyfriend’s house. So niece lies about sexual assault– but not before Mom / sister of Caterino, having a guilty conscience, either mistakenly misconstrued Caterino’s statements that she would “go down” or willfully took revenge for having her illegal conduct brought up: she had been fraudulently obtaining then selling Rx medication, such as Zanax, using her mother’s name [lives in Mexico but comes here for treatment]. Caterino merely was pointing out to her that eventually she would get caught. This is a large, close-knit Mexican family so we had no trouble obtaining a truckload of Affidavits on all aspects of the alleged offense and related alleged offenses. We were able to ferret out the innocence of our client beyond a reasonable doubt in part using these numerous testimonies and to convince Prosecutors that Caterino never committed statutory Retaliation – despite the admittedly difficult presence of a solid motive – his pending investigation for the sexual assault of his sister’s daughter. This Dismissal wasall the more welcome in light of Caterino’s prior criminal history which includes Federal penitentiary time for PCS.
Case No. 920679 – Corey J.
DISMISSED