Sexual abuse often happens behind closed doors where the only witnesses are the abusers and their victims. These crimes seldom leave physical scars and even less physical evidence, which makes prosecuting them a challenge.
And while Texas law allows jurors to convict a defendant based on the testimony of one witness, it’s still an enormous request to ask a jury to convict someone based on the testimony of a single witness.
“That’s what makes them so hard is that these types of crimes happen behind closed doors when victims are at their most vulnerable,” said Courtney Boyd a prosecutor with the Lubbock County District Attorney’s Office. “I feel like it’s just getting harder and harder to for jurors to care about cases where it does solely rely on one person saying it happened. And that is the reality of these (child) sex cases is that it’s a child behind closed doors where it ends up being their word versus sometimes nothing on the other side but having (jurors) to believe them beyond a reasonable doubt.”
On Feb. 22, a case that a defense attorney described to jurors as a situation of “he said, she said” resulted in the conviction and sentence of a Lubbock musician accused of inappropriately touching two family members in 2017 and 2018.
Charles Sanchez, 37, wept after jurors returned guilty verdicts on a three-count indictment charging him with indecency with a child by sexual contact involving a child younger than 14 years old, indecency with a child by sexual contact involving a child younger than 17 years old and indecency by exposure. He faced up to 20 years in prison, though he was also eligible for probation.
Sanchez, who gained local celebrity status under the name DJ Sancho, was sentenced the next day to two years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation. If he violates the condition of his probation, he faces up to five years in prison.
He will also have to register as a sex offender for life and can potentially face felony charges if he does not obey the state’s rules that restrict for registered sex offenders.
Sanchez had been on bond since Oct. 13, 2019, two days after he surrendered to the Lubbock County Detention Center after a warrant for his arrest was issued. The case stemmed from a Lubbock police investigation that began after one of the girls told a friend that Sanchez touched her inappropriately. The friend told her mother who called child protective services.
Once the investigation began, the girl’s older sister also made an outcry that Sanchez also touched her inappropriately.
Prosecutor Austin Sanford told jurors in his opening statement the case rested on the credibility of the girls, who he expected to be attacked during their testimony.
Defense attorney Ben Garcia told jurors that the girls’ statements were inconsistent. However, he told jurors that around the time of the outcries, his client struggled with alcoholism and while drunk would often undress and fall asleep.
Garcia declined to comment after the trial.
He told jurors his client admitted to providing alcohol to one of the girls when she was 12 years old. However, he said his client was known in his family for engaging in horseplay and may have touched one of the girls inappropriately while engaging in horseplay.
He argued that his client was improperly charged in the case saying Sanchez should have faced counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and assault.
During the trial, one of the girls, now 22, told jurors that in April 2017 she was 16 when she was sent home sick after ingesting a pill a friend offered her.
She told jurors her mother was out of town and Sanchez fetched her and took her home. She said she was upset and lying on her bed crying when Sanchez entered her room and began rubbing her back. However, Sanchez continued to move his hand lower on her body until he touched her genitals.
“I was in shock and disbelief that something like that (happened),” she said.
She said she overcame her shock and told Sanchez to leave.
However, the investigation didn’t begin until a year later when the girl’s younger sister told a friend that Sanchez touched her inappropriately and exposed himself to her. The friend told her mother who called child protective services.
The younger sister, who was told jurors that in March 2018 when she was about 12, Sanchez came home drunk and pressured her to drink alcohol. She said he gave her tequila and she became drunk.
She said she got in bed and Sanchez reportedly got into her bed with her and asked her to take off her bra. She said she told Sanchez to stop and he left the room.
However, she said Sanchez called her downstairs and she said he was in his underwear. She said he exposed his genitals to her, asked to have sex with her and groped her chest. She said she went back to her room, the warrant states.
Neither girl witnessed the other’s abuse and only testified about their own abuse.
Sanchez also testified at the trial, denying what happened with the older girl, saying he was baffled by the girls’ testimony.
“I have no clue (where the allegations came from),” he said. “I was hit sideways … It was twilight zone. It was beyond me.”
However he admitted to giving the younger girl alcohol and said he “flicked” the girl’s chest as a form of horseplay, not to satisfy a sexual desire.
Sanchez said he has worked as a DJ around teenagers for decades and was often hired to entertain at parties including quinceaneras, a celebration in the Hispanic community of a girl’s 15th birthday, which is considered the beginning of womanhood.
He said in his time working as an entertainer, he’d never been accused of being inappropriate with children.
“I love working with children,” he said.
However, jurors also heard from a family counselor who initially worked with Sanchez and his wife in the beginning of 2018 as the couple struggled with trust issues. However, the counselor began seeing the girls when the investigation began.
Around that time, the Sylvia Trevino told jurors that Sanchez sent her an email saying he’d made bad choices while drinking and admitted to asking the younger girl to drink with him but doesn’t remember anything else.
Prosecutors also read a letter Sanchez wrote asking the younger sister to forgive him for that night.
Prosecutors told jurors in their closing arguments in the guilt-innocence phase of the trial that the girls’ had no motive to make their allegations, saying it resulted in a rift in their family and a rejection from a significant family member.
Jurors spent about 50 minutes in deliberation before finding Sanchez guilty of all three counts.
Boyd told jurors in her closing argument for the punishment phase of the trial that they needed to hand down a sentence that holds Sanchez accountable for his actions. She said throughout the trial, Sanchez never took responsibility for his actions.
Garcia told jurors that two years in prison was an adequate punishment for his client’s crime. He said his client has worked on his sobriety and Garcia told jurors he was confident that Sanchez will never find himself in the same situation again.
Boyd said after the trial that all the girls wanted the last five years was for Sanchez to take responsibility for his actions and admit what he did to them. She said they never wanted sought the maximum sentence. What they did want was for Sanchez be listed on the states’ sex offender registry.
“This was a victim-driven prosecution,” she said. “I met with these girls for five years since this prosecution was born and that is what they cared about… the girls were never out for blood and wanting to send him away for a really, really, long time.”
She said she was proud of the girls’ bravery through the case, saying they were satisfied with the outcome of the case.
“We were happy,” she said. “‘Cause basically this means we get to keep our eyes on him for 12 years is how we feel about it.”