Opinion
23-0422
02-21-2024
STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JUAN PARAMO VARGAS, Defendant-Appellant.
Nicholas A. Sarcone of Babich Sarcone, PLLC, Des Moines, for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Olivia D. Brooks, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Hancock County, Colleen Weiland, Judge.
A defendant appeals his conviction for third-degree sexual abuse, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence corroborating his admission.
Nicholas A. Sarcone of Babich Sarcone, PLLC, Des Moines, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Olivia D. Brooks, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered by Tabor, P.J., and Badding and Chicchelly, JJ.
BADDING, JUDGE.
The morning after hosting a birthday party for his wife's friend, Juan Paramo Vargas (Paramo) admitted to Lily, one of the party-goers, that he "did oral" on her while she was passed out in a guest bedroom. After a bench trial, Paramo was convicted of sexual abuse in the third degree. He appeals, claiming the evidence was insufficient to find that he performed a sex act because his out-of-court admission was not sufficiently corroborated. We affirm.
Because the parties and court referred to him as Paramo at trial, we will as well.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
On November 13, 2021, Paramo's wife, Daisy, threw a birthday party for her friend, Jessica. Their other friends-Lily; Lily's boyfriend, Jesse; and Megan- attended the party, as did some of Daisy's family. Lily and Jesse got to the Paramos' house around noon to help Daisy get everything set up. They cooked food, put tables out, decorated the garage, and filled a pinata with candy.
After everyone ate, around 8:00 p.m. or so, Daisy's parents left with the Paramos' children. The adults who stayed started drinking. The last thing Lily remembered after having three mixed drinks was dancing with her friends. When she woke up early the next morning, Lily's friends told her "that it had been a really weird night and that something might have happened" to her.
Filling in the blanks, Jesse testified that around 10:00 p.m., Lily followed Daisy to bed. They were both drunk and, as Jessica said, "no longer functioning." Lily said that she blacked out. Jesse followed them to make sure Lily was okay. With Paramo's help, he got Lily out of Daisy's bed and moved her to an upstairs bedroom. When Jesse laid Lily down on the bed, she was fully clothed and lying on her stomach. He pulled the covers over her, left the door open about an inch, and returned to the party in the garage.
The only ones still there were Paramo, Jessica, and Megan. They were listening to music, dancing, and drinking. At some point after Jesse put Lily to bed, he and Jessica both saw Paramo leave the garage, but they didn't see where he went. Jesse did hear "some rustling around" upstairs though. About fifteen to twenty-five minutes after he helped Lily to bed, Jesse went back upstairs to check on her. He found the bedroom door wide open, the blankets pulled from her body to the foot of the bed, and her dress pulled up to her midsection, although she was still wearing her underwear. Jesse testified that Lily was still lying on her stomach, but he couldn't remember whether her legs had been moved. He pulled her dress down, tucked her back in, left the door cracked again, and returned to the garage. Lily did not wake up during any of this. Jesse checked on Lily a couple more times after that, and she was undisturbed.
Around 11:30 p.m., Megan testified that she went down to the basement to sleep on a couch. Paramo came down and shut off the light. Then he tried to get Megan to "come out and drink again." She told him no. He started rubbing her feet and kept asking her to go back to the party. Megan repeated, "No, I'm going to bed. Good night." Paramo got the hint, Megan thought, and walked away. Disturbed, Megan messaged Jessica that Paramo was being weird. Jessica and Jesse went to the basement to check on Megan, who filled them in on her encounter with Paramo. After hearing this, Jesse told them about how he had found Lily the first time that he checked on her. He suggested that Megan sleep with her so they would be together and safe.
After Megan went upstairs to stay with Lily, Jesse saw Paramo leave the garage again. Shortly before midnight, Megan started messaging Jesse, first telling him: "He just came up here but left." Jesse responded: "Okay well imma come with y'all eventually and just sleep on the floor cause this really sketch." Megan thanked him, and Jesse said, "Yeah of course I'm just nervous around this guy." About an hour later, Megan messaged, "He's in here." Jesse asked, "Are you ok," and Megan answered, "No. Come here." Jesse went to the room and found Paramo in there bothering Megan. Lily was still sleeping. Jesse tried to persuade Paramo to go back to the garage, but Paramo said he needed to use the restroom. Jesse waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. He heard the toilet flush twice, but Paramo didn't come down. So Jesse went back upstairs and had to "physically remove" Paramo from the room where Megan and Lily were.
Megan testified that Paramo came back into the room several times. One of the last times, he offered Megan money to have sex with him and touched her left butt cheek and breast. Megan refused, got up, and started downstairs to the garage. On the way, she met Jesse and Jessica, who were coming up to check on them. Jessica testified that Megan "looked very scared" and was "almost in tears." So she went into the bedroom with Megan. They tried to wake Lily up, but she "was out," according to Jessica. After Jessica joined her friends in the bedroom, Paramo kept coming in. At one point, he opened the door to the room and said, "I fucked up." Jessica asked what he did, but he wouldn't say.
After that, Jesse stayed with Paramo in the garage, hoping that he would get "tired enough to go to bed to leave them alone." Paramo finally went to bed with Daisy, and Jesse went upstairs to sleep in the bedroom with Lily, Megan, and Jessica. Jesse laid on the floor with his feet against the door in case Paramo tried to come back in. Lily woke up around 3:00 a.m. when Jesse came into the room, which is when Megan and Jessica told her what had been going on. After they all calmed down, Lily laid on the floor next to Jesse and tried to sleep.
At about 6:15 a.m., Lily heard a soft knock on the door. She opened it a crack and saw Paramo "standing there with his hands against his chest asking [her] to talk to him." Lily went into a different room with Paramo, who told her "that he was really sorry for what happened throughout the night." He told Lily that he touched her butt and then he said, "I did oral on you." Paramo begged Lily not to tell his wife and ruin their family. Shocked, Lily rushed back to the other room and told the others what Paramo said. The group packed their things and went downstairs to tell Daisy. She confronted Paramo, who denied that anything happened. The two "started getting a little bit aggressive towards each other," and Daisy called the police.
Deputy Erik Hjelmeland of the Hancock County Sheriff's Office was dispatched to the home and arrived around 7:00 a.m. He individually interviewed Jessica, Jesse, Megan, and Lily. Each gave statements generally in line with their trial testimony.
Deputy Hjelmeland also spoke with Paramo. He denied touching Lily, instead telling the deputy that she was coming onto him during the party. Deputy Hjelmeland told Paramo that Lily took a video with her phone of him apologizing to her and asked him, "what about the oral part?" Paramo answered that he "didn't know if [he] was dreaming, or something." He said that he apologized to Lily because he felt bad about the dream. Paramo claimed Lily took that to mean that it really happened, and she got upset. When asked for more details about the dream, Paramo said he couldn't remember it clearly because he was drunk, even though earlier he told the deputy that he wasn't drunk. But he explained that his dream involved him using his mouth on Lily's vagina.
Deputy Hjelmeland arrested Paramo and transported him to jail. Once there, the deputy talked with Paramo again to get more details about his dream. When Deputy Hjelmeland asked Paramo if he remembered how long he was "with her, how long you were in her bed," Paramo at first said no. But he eventually said, "No more than-dos." Deputy Hjelmeland questioned if Paramo thought it was the alcohol that made him do it, and Paramo responded: "Sure, it was the alcohol. I don't know why I kept drinking with them."
Paramo's first language is Spanish. The videos show that he struggles somewhat with English.
Paramo was charged by trial information with third-degree sexual abuse. The matter proceeded to a bench trial. Following the presentation of evidence, Paramo moved for judgment of acquittal, arguing the only evidence that he committed a sex act was his statement to Lily. The court denied the motion and took the case under advisement.
In the written verdict that followed, the court found Paramo's unsolicited admission to Lily "very believable" and concluded it was "also corroborated by circumstantial evidence." The corroborating evidence outlined by the court included that Paramo left the garage after Lily went to bed, the door to the room was open even though Jesse left it only slightly ajar, and Lily's dress and covers were disheveled. The court also noted that Paramo went back to the bedroom Lily was in several times after Jesse first found her disturbed. The court acknowledged, "Lacking any other context, Defendant's confession would not reach the level of beyond a reasonable doubt. And lacking the confession, the other circumstances would not reach the level of beyond a reasonable doubt. But taken together, the court is firmly convinced" that Paramo engaged in a sex act with Lily. As a result, the court found him guilty of third-degree sexual abuse. Paramo appeals.
II. Analysis
Paramo claims the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction because his out-of-court admission was not sufficiently corroborated. The parties agree that we review this claim for correction of errors at law, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State and drawing all reasonable inferences in the State's favor. See State v. Harris, No. 14-1393, 2015 WL 7019022, at *2-3 (Iowa Ct. App. Nov. 12, 2015); State v. Anderson, No. 13-1274, 2014 WL 4230210, at *6-7 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 27, 2014); see also State v. Liggins, 524 N.W.2d 181, 187 (Iowa 1994) ("The existence of corroborative evidence is a question of law for the court, but its sufficiency is ordinarily a question of fact for the [factfinder]." (citation omitted)).
The terms admission and confession mean essentially the same thing in this context. See State v. Polly, 657 N.W.2d 462, 466 n.1 (Iowa 2003).
Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.21(4) provides: "The confession of the defendant, unless made in open court, will not warrant a conviction unless accompanied with other proof that the defendant committed the offense." Accord Polly, 657 N.W.2d at 466. "Corroboration need not be strong nor need it go to the whole case so long as it confirms some material fact connecting the defendant with the crime." Id. at 467 (citations omitted). "The State must offer evidence to show the crime has been committed and which as a whole proves [the defendant] is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. However, the 'other proof' itself does not have to prove the offense beyond a reasonable doubt or even by a preponderance." Id. The purpose of the "other proof" is merely to fortify the truth of the confession, without independently establishing the crime. Id.
Paramo argues that, aside from his statement to Lily that he committed "oral" upon her, there is no other evidence that a sex act ever occurred. He says "[t]he alleged corroboration in this case does not confirm any facts connecting [him] with any crime nor does it justify an inference of the admission's truth." We disagree.
At around 10:00 p.m., Jesse, with Paramo's help, carried an intoxicated Lily to bed in a second-floor bedroom away from the party in the garage. When Jesse tucked Lily in, she was fully clothed with her dress pulled down as normal. Jesse pulled the covers over her and remembered leaving the door to the room "at a very specific open width." He went back to the garage and did not return to check on Lily until about twenty minutes later. In that window of time, Jesse saw Paramo leave the garage. Jessica did too. When Jesse went back up to check on Lily, he found the bedroom door wide open, with the covers pulled off her, and her dress hiked up to her midsection.
This evidence shows, as the State argues, "that Paramo had the opportunity to commit the act of sex abuse he later described, and opportunity is a material fact that connects him with the crime." See State v. Hettinger, No. 21-0458, 2022 WL 1486187, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. May 11, 2022) (considering a defendant's "opportunity and motive" in assessing corroborating evidence of a confession). The way that Jesse found Lily on the bed during the time that Paramo was missing from the garage-uncovered and partially undressed-provides additional circumstantial evidence fortifying the truth of Paramo's admission. See Polly, 657 N.W.2d at 467.
The evidence also shows that Paramo was sexually motivated that night. See Hettinger, 2022 WL 1486187, at *4. Even though no one saw Paramo go into the bedroom when Lily was there alone, he kept going back later after Megan and Jessica joined her. One of those times, he propositioned Megan for sex. And another time, Megan told the deputy that Paramo was just standing there, like he was trying to see if they were awake. Further corroborating evidence includes Paramo's acknowledgments of wrongdoing, his statement to Jessica that he "fucked up," his plea not to tell his wife, and his story that he only dreamed about having oral sex with Lily. See State v. Definbaugh, No. 21-1383, 2022 WL 16985478, at *6 (Iowa Ct. App. Nov. 17, 2022) (concluding "[h]is pleading indicates his own knowledge of wrongdoing," which corroborated incriminating statements). We agree with the district court that these facts, taken together, support Paramo's admission. See State v. Meyers, 799 N.W.2d 132, 139 (Iowa 2011) ("Circumstantial corroborating evidence may include several facts that, when combined, support the admission.").
Yet Paramo argues that "a host of other explanations exist" for why Lily's dress was raised, pointing out she "may have gone to the bathroom, gotten a drink of water or simply kicked her covers off herself." But Jesse testified that after the first time he checked on Lily, she stayed in the same position. And her friends described her as a "deep sleeper," who they could not wake up when they went into the room. In any event, the sufficiency of the corroborating evidence was a question for the court as the factfinder, see Liggins, 524 N.W.2d at 187, as was the credibility of the witnesses' testimony. See State v. Capper, 539 N.W.2d 361, 364-65 (Iowa 1995), abrogated on other grounds by State v. Hawk, 616 N.W.2d 527, 530 (Iowa 2000).
III. Conclusion
Upon viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, and drawing all reasonable inferences in the State's favor, we find there is sufficient "other proof" linking Paramo to the crime and corroborating his admission. We accordingly affirm his conviction.
AFFIRMED.