The existence of a witness who never testified at trial is no reason for two men convicted of child molestation charges to get new trials, the district attorney’s office stated last week in a state Superior Court brief.
The DA’s brief, written by Assistant District Attorney Peter Carr, answered those filed in July by attorneys for former Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero and the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, who are appealing their 2013 child molestation convictions.
The defense attorneys’ filings touched on a number of subjects that they said were errors at the early 2013 trial. Engelhardt, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales who had lived in the St. Jerome rectory in the late 1990s, and Shero, who taught at the the parish school, were convicted of molesting the same pupil, referred to as D.G., when he was 10 and 11 years old. They both are serving long prison terms.
Briefs for the defendants’ appeals were sealed when filed in July. However, Carr last week answered issues brought up in the defendants’ filings.
One striking topic was that the defendants should get new trials because there was a witness who could have corroborated testimony for the defense.
According to Carr’s answers, the defense attorneys think new trials should be granted because the victim had spoken to two archdiocesan abuse investigators, Louise Hagner and Judy Cruz Ransom, but only Hagner testified about their 2009 encounter with the victim, who was an adult when he reported he was molested as a child.
Carr maintained Cruz Ransom’s account could have been discovered at or before trial. Besides, the DA’s brief stated, Cruz Ransom’s testimony would have just been a rehash of the other investigator’s testimony “and would have been relevant only for impeachment.”
Further, the DA’s brief continued that the defendants “knew at or before the criminal trial that Ms. Cruz Ransom was present when Ms. Hagner took a statement from D.G. Indeed, Ms. Cruz Ransom‘s presence during the interview was mentioned repeatedly at the trial — usually by defense counsel. … Thus, Ms. Cruz Ransom was a known witness, and defendant could have obtained the account she ultimately provided in [a deposition in a civil case] simply by interviewing her and calling her as a witness at the criminal trial.”
But the defendants didn’t do that, so they “may not validly portray that account as newly discovered evidence,” Carr wrote.
Citing case law, the DA’s brief stated: “A defendant cannot claim he has discovered new evidence simply because he had not been expressly told of that evidence. Likewise, a defendant who fails to question or investigate an obvious, available source of information, cannot later claim evidence from that source constitutes newly discovered evidence.” ••
