Retrial begins on jail guard rape charge
Jury in previous trial could not agree on one allegation
A third criminal trial started Monday in former jail guard Enock Arvizo’s case, this one revisiting a rape charge that jurors in his first trial could not unanimously agree upon.
The retrial before 2nd Judicial District Judge Briana Zamora is expected to last three or four days.
In her opening statement, prosecutor Laura Horton said Arvizo was wearing a Metropolitan Detention Center uniform and carrying a gun when he raped a shackled, handcuffed inmate in a courthouse elevator on April 13, 2015.
Horton said the two are shown on surveillance footage leaving a third-floor courtroom at 10:32 a.m., and they emerge from the elevator’s basement doors six minutes later at 10:38 a.m. That video, Horton said, confirms the woman inmate’s story, that the assault lasted four to six minutes. Footage also shows that the ride up to the courtroom took less than a minute.
Horton said semen was found on the underwear the woman said she was wearing the day of the assault, and DNA tests showed Arvizo could not be eliminated as a source.
Arvizo’s defense attorney Stephen Lane suggested the woman, who has a criminal record, is untrustworthy. And he said Arvizo made what in hindsight was a “fatally flawed decision” when he escorted the female inmate through the courthouse unaccompanied.
“As a result of the allegations that she chooses to make against Mr. Arvizo (she) is in a position to file a lawsuit against the county,” Lane said.
Although attorneys cannot discuss the civil case in trial, Bernalillo County settled a civil suit filed by three of Arvizo’s accusers for $2.1 million.
Arvizo offered a written statement to his supervisor that said “I did have sex with inmate on 4/13/15,” but Zamora ruled the statement was not admissible at trial.
When he was indicted in February 2016, Arvizo initially faced allegations involving five female inmates. Rape charges related to two of those women were dismissed by prosecutors because of the death of an essential witness. His remaining charges have been split up and handled in separate trials — one for each alleged victim.
Jurors in Arvizo’s first trial in May found him
not guilty of one count, but they could not agree on the second. This week, he is being retried on that final count of criminal sexual penetration.
Last month, he went to trial on charges that he attempted to kiss another female inmate. Jurors in that trial found him guilty of two petty misdemeanor counts of assault.
Arvizo is set to go to trial again Monday on rape and battery charges involving the final woman.
Arvizo’s case is being prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office.