People v. Cruz CA4/3

Filed 6/23/14 P. v. Cruz CA4/3

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION THREE

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Respondent, G048101

v. (Super. Ct. No. 10HF0122)

FREDY ZUNIGA CRUZ, OPINION

Defendant and Appellant.

Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court of Orange County, Carla Singer, Judge. Affirmed. David M. McKinney, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Julie L. Garland, Assistant Attorney General, Steve Oetting and Andrew Mestman, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Appellant Fredy Zuniga Cruz was convicted of committing multiple sex crimes against a child. He contends his trial was unfair because the victim was allowed to testify with the assistance of a support person, and the jury was allowed to consider his failure to deny certain pretrial allegations as adoptive admissions. We do not believe these alleged errors rendered appellant’s trial unfair or warrant a reversal. Therefore, we affirm the judgment. FACTS In January 2010, seven-year-old R.J. and her family were living in an apartment with several other relatives, including her aunt T.M. and appellant. (Although appellant was R.J.’s second cousin, she referred to him as her uncle.) One day, T.M. arrived home and found appellant and R.J. alone on the living room sofa. Appellant’s pants were completely down, and when R.J. stood up, she began adjusting her sweatpants. Appellant claimed nothing was going on, but when T.M. took R.J. aside, she indicated appellant molested her whenever her mother wasn’t around. T.M. relayed this information to R.J.’s parents, and the next day they took R.J. to the hospital. However, they left before she was examined because they feared that, as undocumented immigrants, they would have R.J. taken away from them if the authorities found out she had been molested by a relative. Later that day, the police came to their house to investigate. Based on the same fear, her parents instructed R.J. not to reveal the molestation, so she kept quiet about it. The following day, though, they brought R.J. in to be interviewed by a social worker. Concerned her mother would go to jail, R.J. initially denied she had ever been molested. But as the interview wore on, she indicated appellant had molested her on multiple occasions. She said appellant had touched her vagina with his penis eight times, and when he put it inside her, it hurt. During a follow-up interview, she alleged appellant had also sodomized and digitally penetrated her. Although a forensic exam of