State v. DeJesus

         Argued September 5, 2019

         Appeal from Superior Court, Judicial District of New Haven, Alander, J.

Page 869

          Norman A. Pattis, Bethany, for the appellant (defendant).

         Laurie N. Feldman, special deputy assistant state’s attorney, with whom, on the brief, were Patrick Griffin, state’s attorney, and Maxine Wilensky, senior assistant state’s attorney, for the appellee (state).

         DiPentima, C. J., and Keller and Bright, Js.

          OPINION

         BRIGHT, J.

Page 870

          [194 Conn.App. 306] The defendant, Osvaldo DeJesus, appeals from the judgment of conviction, rendered after a jury trial, of four counts of risk of injury to a child in violation of General Statutes § 53-21 (a) (2), and two counts of sexual assault in the fourth degree in violation of General Statutes § 53a-73a (a) (1) (A).^[1] On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court (1) improperly admitted into evidence expert testimony that amounted to impermissible bolstering of the victim’s credibility and (2) erred in concluding, during a pretrial hearing, that the victim was not an adverse party, thereby precluding defense counsel from asking the victim leading questions on direct examination. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

         The following facts, which the jury reasonably could have found, and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of this appeal. The defendant and the victim’s mother, M,^[2] were in a relationship when, in 2003 or 2004, the defendant moved into the apartment M shared with her two daughters, D and the victim. At the time, the victim was two or three years old. Thereafter, the defendant, M, and her daughters moved to a condominium. In 2005, M gave birth to the defendant’s son, S, and the five of them shared the condominium.

          In 2008, when the victim was eight years old, the defendant began a pattern of sexually assaulting her in the bedroom the victim shared with D. Over the course of the next two years, the defendant sexually abused the victim both in and out of the home. When the victim was ten years old, she began menstruating, prompting [194 Conn.App. 307] the defendant to stop the sexual abuse. In 2013, the defendant and M ended their relationship and, at M’s insistence, the defendant moved out of the condominium. Because S continued to live with M, the defendant would stop by the condominium unannounced and would stay there until S went to sleep. The victim withheld disclosure of the abuses she had suffered until she was thirteen years old, at which point she confided in her cousin, C. Unable to articulate verbally what had happened, the victim disclosed the news to C by way of a text message with the expectation that C would keep it a secret. Several days later, the victim’s aunt discovered the text message and relayed the information to M. That night, M took the victim to the police station where she gave videotaped and written statements concerning the defendant’s sexual abuse. Three days later, the victim went to the child sexual abuse clinic at Yale New Haven Hospital where she had a videotaped forensic interview with Rebecha Sullivan, a licensed clinical social worker.

          On the basis of the victim’s complaint, the defendant was charged with two counts of sexual assault in the first degree, four counts of risk of injury to a child, and two counts of sexual assault in the fourth degree. Following a jury trial, the defendant was convicted of all four counts of risk of injury to a child and both counts of sexual assault in the fourth degree. He was acquitted of the remaining charges.

Page 871

See footnote 1 of this opinion. The court imposed a total effective sentence of thirty-two years of incarceration, execution suspended after twenty years, with fifteen years of probation and ten years of sex offender registration. This appeal ...