An Ector County jury that must decide the fate of a 39-year-old Odessa man accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old more than four years ago heard from the alleged victim Monday afternoon.
Daniel Anthony Chavez is facing two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child in the 161st Ector County District Court.
After questioning her first witness, former Ector County Deputy Luke Smith, Assistant Ector County District Attorney Kortney Williams summoned the alleged victim.
The soft-spoken girl spoke freely about her family, but when it came time to tell the jury about the alleged events, she spoke more haltingly.
When questioned about that, the girl told Williams, “it’s a memory I wouldn’t like to remember.”
The now 15-year-old girl testified that on Nov. 20, 2018 she went to bed early, but woke up because her rabbit was out of water and making a lot of noise. When she got up to remove his water bottle, her younger sister took over the bottom bunk of the bed they shared, “spreading out like a starfish.” So, she grabbed a blanket and moved to the floor rather than risk making her sister grumpy.
She was laying on her stomach in her Disney character-themed pajamas when she heard footsteps, she testified. Moments later, Chavez flipped her over onto her front.
“He started messing with me. He pulled down my pants and he started playing with me,” the girl testified.
Under further questioning from Williams, the girl testified her underwear came off with her pajama bottoms. She then described Chavez digitally penetrating her and performing oral sex on her.
She doesn’t remember him saying anything at that point, but she remembers her mother entering the room, turning on the light and asking Chavez what he was doing in the room.
“He picked up the front of my pants and ran into the bathroom,” the girl said, adding she remembers hearing the water running.
Chavez told her mom he’d been getting ready to pick her up to put her back in the bed, she said.
Her mother also asked Chavez why her PJ bottoms were down in the back, the girl testified.
“My mom called the police and told him to get out,” she said.
At one point, her mom momentarily left the room and Chavez begged her not to tell authorities what happened, the teenager testified.
After a deputy came to her home, the girl testified she went to Medical Center Hospital and then the Harmony Home Children’s Advocacy Center.
During cross examination from defense attorney Louis Chavez, the girl acknowledged she didn’t tell anyone at the hospital or Harmony Home her mom had momentarily left the room, but she said it was because she wasn’t asked.
She also acknowledged there were times when she told a sexual assault nurse examiner and a forensic examiner she didn’t remember certain things.
Under re-direct, the girl insisted no one told her what to say on the stand. In fact, she said she was just told to tell the truth.
What happened is not something she likes talking about, she said.
“It’s hard,” she said.
Stephanie Schoen, a mental health director at Harmony Home with 25 years of experience treating sex offenders and sexual assault victims, took the stand immediately following the girl’s testimony.
She testified about the common techniques sex offenders use to identify and groom their victims and some of the ways people react to the trauma of being victimized.
The human brain often tries to disassociate from traumatic incidents as a protective measure and thus it’s common for people to say they don’t remember events, she testified.
She pointed out that when Williams presented the girl two photos of herself taken around the time of the alleged assault and asked her to identify the person in the photos, she replied in the third person.
Under cross-examination from Chavez’s other defense attorney, Anthony Chavez, Schoen testified victims of sex crimes can react to danger years later in one of two ways. They can disassociate and ignore all of the red flags or they can become hyper-vigilant and spot red flags everywhere.
Earlier, outside the presence of the jury, the girl had been asked if she, Chavez and her mother had ever spoken about her mother having been abused in the past.
The girl said no.
During opening statements, Louis Chavez told jurors there is no DNA or other “tangible” evidence an assault took place. He asked them to keep an open mind.
The trial will resume at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Judge Justin Low is presiding.
