To my surprise, yesterday, I was selected to sit on a six man panel in the case of The People of the State of Colorado v. Carlos Eugene Gomez, charged with unlawful sexual contact (a class 1 misdemeanor).
The district attorney presented testimony to establish that Carlos Gomez, an employee of Rocky Mountain Offender Management Systems Westminster office, of his own volition, had the supervised parole of Ms. Angel Gray transferred from the state parole office to RMOMS. That he and another employee took the extraordinary step of visiting Ms. Gray at her place of employment (Saturday Night Live Strip Club) to collect fees. That he alone returned to the Saturday Night Live Strip Club a second time to discuss a private dance. And that on Monday, August 15, 2005, in the RMOMS office, Carlos Gomez asked to grab the ass of Ms. Gray and did, repeatedly asked to see Ms. Gray’s pubic area and pulled on her pants in an attempt to see despite numerous refusals, and
asked to touch Ms. Gray’s breasts and did without her consent.
The defense did not present a case.
Closing arguments and jury instruction was this morning. We took about three hours to all agree to convict Carlos Gomez of the crime charged. It all boiled down to whether or not we found the story told by Angel Gray to be credible or not since there was no eye-witness testimony to support her claims. Some of the jurors had an easier time coming to our verdict than others. One guy, late in the deliberation summed it up this way for the last guy who was still having doubts about her motivation. He said, “She had nothing to gain [by reporting the crime] but her dignity”. I hope he’s right, for the sake of everyone involved.