Detective: Richmond High rape suspect recalled victim crying 'no'
By Malaika Fraley
Contra Costa Times
11/22/2010
MARTINEZ -- Only one man tried to protect a 16-year-old Richmond High School student while as many as 20 people watched her being sexually assaulted on the campus last fall as she cried for help, according to court testimony Monday.
Former Detective Ken Greco testified that defendant Manuel Ortega told him this the day after officers found the girl partially nude and unconscious under a picnic table and arrested Ortega in the area.
"Salvador (Rodriguez) said, 'No, this is someone's sister, someone's daughter,' " Greco said, quoting Ortega. "He said that others said, 'Hey, you don't know (her).' "
Rodriguez, 22, of Richmond, was originally arrested -- then released without charges -- in connection with the Oct. 24, 2009, incident in which police said the girl was gang raped, beaten and robbed over two hours in a dark campus courtyard during a homecoming dance.
Greco, who retired from the Richmond police department in May, is the ninth witness to testify at an ongoing preliminary hearing for seven men and teen boys charged in the assault. The teen defendants are charged as adults. All but one could face life in prison.
The girl told Greco that she left the dance about 8 p.m. to call her father for a ride home and then joined defendant Cody Ray Smith, a biology classmate whom she knew since seventh grade, and three other males at the picnic table. While being questioned by Smith's attorney, David Headley, Greco testified that the two defendants he interviewed said that Smith, 16, of San Pablo, did not touch the girl and "left before anything bad happened."
The girl said she previously never drank alcohol, but was chugging brandy out of a bottle that night because she was depressed over the state of her parents' marriage.
"She said she was upset because her father was leaving her mother and moving out Nov. 1 and her mother didn't know," Greco said.
She told Greco that no one had made sexual advances toward her at the table, but if they had tried she would have said no. She said she remembers nothing after getting dizzy and collapsing.
Ortega, 20, of Richmond, told Greco that after the girl became sick, she was on the ground. People began pulling her dress up and fondling her. People were taking pictures of her on their cell phones. She was semiconscious, at times trying to kick and strike at her attackers.
"The victim was saying 'no, no,' as other individuals were on top of her, (having sex with) her," Greco testified as to Ortega's account.
"More and more people showed up because people were saying there's a drunk white (girl) over there," Greco testified that Ortega said. "He was thinking, 'Damn, it's getting out of control. It just started with us, and now it was something big.' "
The officer who arrested Ortega previously testified that a drunken Ortega said the girl wanted him to have sex with her. Ortega denied to Greco that he raped the girl, but admitted to physical contact. Ortega said the girl scratched his neck during a struggle over her necklace.
"(Ortega) said he backhanded her with his right hand to her face" more than once, Greco said.
"Did he tell you why he was hitting her?" deputy district attorney Dara Cashman asked.
"Because she wouldn't shut up "... she was whining, 'no, no,' " Greco said.
Defendant Ari Adallah Morales, 17, told Greco that Ortega was "torturing" and "abusing" the girl as Ortega tried unsuccessfully to get her to perform oral sex. Morales admitted to urinating on the victim and stealing her ring, which he later discarded because it was "cheap," Greco said.
Morales, a Richmond High student who said he was drunk that night, also confessed to penetrating the girl with a school-owned walkie-talkie, which he said he did "out of silliness," according to Greco. Police said they found confiscated condoms from Morales' San Pablo home that were of the same brand and lot number of those found at the scene.
Morales told Greco he told his former neighbor -- defendant Marcelles James Peter, 18, of Pinole -- that "they're like raping a little girl over there" and that Peter replied, "For reals? I got to check this out."
Defendant John Crane, 43, of Richmond, was linked to the crime by DNA testing, Greco said. When Greco showed the girl Crane's photo, she said she had never seen him before.
Greco said he also interviewed Raul Rubio, who was standing on a residential street near the campus with some friends that night when they were approached by three men.
Greco said the men told Rubio, "You want some ... ? She's back there all naked and stuff if you want to go (expletive) her."
Disturbed, Rubio went home and told his roommate what he had heard. That roommate, who has been previously identified as Margarita Vargas, was the first person to call 911.
The other defendants are Elvis Josue Torrentes, 23, and Jose Carlos Montano, 19, of Richmond. Greco said the victim remembered Torrentes as being present that night. Montano has not been named by any witness thus far, but he does match the physical description and has the same tattoo as the man that Morales and Ortega told police was the first person who had sex with the girl.
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