Sentencing is set for July 18 for a 60-year-old man convicted of repeatedly sexually assaulting a boy from ages 10 to 12 and a girl from ages 4 to 8 while he lived with both in La Habra.
Gerardo Monroy was found guilty by a jury Wednesday of continuous sexual abuse of a child and three counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, all felonies.
Monroy was convicted of sexually assaulting the boy in 2007 and the girl in 1994, according to court records.
The two victims are related but did not know about the alleged sexual abuse of each other before they came forward to law enforcement, Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Caughlin said in closing arguments of the trial Wednesday.
Defense attorney Kevin Song of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office argued the male victim told a girlfriend about the abuse as she recounted physical abuse she suffered growing up.
“Is it reasonable for (the victim) to give his own trauma story to the point of making it up just so they could have a bond,” Song said. “I don’t think that’s an unreasonable inference.”
Monroy was an “easy target” because he had left the boy’s home at that point due to allegations of infidelity with the accuser’s mother, Song said.
“So he’s not popular in that house. So he’s sticking it to him,” Song said.
Song was also skeptical of the accuser’s testimony that Monroy had an “evil presence” about him, but he didn’t report the abuse right away because he feared retaliation against his brother and mother.
Song also said the male accuser’s cousin had a history of troubled behavior, such as drinking alcohol at 15. That led her parents to prod her to participate in therapy, but she didn’t want to do that so she accused the defendant of molesting her, Song said.
“She didn’t want to go to therapy,” Song said. “Either she didn’t want to go to counseling or she wanted her parents off her back.”
Her parents waited three days before calling police, “which begs the question. Did her parents have trouble believing her?” Song said.
“If those closest to her don’t believe her then why should you,” Song said.
Song was skeptical of the female accuser’s testimony that the defendant touched her groin area when she was sleeping when she was 4 years old. He doubted any adult could remember back that far.
“She says she was sleeping and notices my client was touching her vagina,” Song said. “She freaks out and wakes up everyone in the household.”
But she didn’t say at the time the defendant “touched her privates,” which “doesn’t make sense,” Song said.
Caughlin said the victims were not lying.
“They have nothing to gain by being here,” she said.
If the male accuser wanted to bond with his girlfriend, he would have more likely said he was physically abused by a parent, not that he was sexually assaulted, Caughlin argued.
The prosecutor said the defense attorney engaged in “countless examples of victim blaming.”
If the female accuser wanted to avoid therapy, then an admission of sexual abuse wouldn’t be a logical solution, Caughlin argued.
“If you want to get out of therapy you say, `No, no, I’m fine. I’ll stop partying,”’ Caughlin said.
Alleging sexual abuse is “the exact opposite of what you would say if you want to avoid therapy,” Caughlin said.
And even if her family was initially skeptical, “Don’t gloss over the fact that the family now believes her,” Caughlin said.
The prosecutor pointed to the expert psychiatric testimony of Mindy Mechanic.
“The victims reacted exactly as science expects them to do,” Caughlin said.
“The only reasonable conclusion at the end of evidence is that the defendant committed horrific lewd acts against” the victims, Caughlin said.