Arlington Man Guilty Of Sexual Assault Posted To Facebook
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) – A jury found Christian Fuentes guilty of the 2013 sexual assault of an Arlington woman.
The trial included photo evidence taken from video of the defendant committing the attack, which was posted to Facebook shortly after the crime.
On December 29, 2013, Fuentes, then 19, and two male friends met up with the female victim, a 19-year-old former coworker. The group went to Fuentes' house, where they drank beer and consumed "quad bars," a slang term for bars containing Xanax. They gave the victim a powdered version of Xanex to inhale… and her last memory after that was of the four sitting in a bedroom with both a queen-sized and twin bed. She remembered waking up the next morning nude with the defendants lying around her in various states of undress. She asked what happened, and was told by one of the defendants that the three men had sex with her.
The victim dressed and left, although she was unable to find her debit card, and after talking to a close friend she learned that a video of the night's assault was posted to Facebook. The video, as well as a later recovered photo, showed Fuentes performing sex acts on the unconscious victim on the small twin bed used by his young daughter, who was out of town with Fuentes' girlfriend.
After learning of the video, the victim and her friend filed a report with the Arlington Police Department. Fuentes later admitted to swiping the victim's debit card at an ATM with the intent to steal from her account, but said the sexual activity was consensual.
It was learned later that Fuentes' parents were home at the time of the attack, and he spoke with his mother shortly before the assault began. He also recounted removing his daughter's Dora the Explorer doll from the bed so it wouldn't show in the video recording.
Fuentes, who is (and was at the time of the offense) on probation for past charges of Theft of a Firearm and Unlawful Carry, was found guilty of Sexual Assault on Thursday.
The case then entered the sentencing phase, during which additional arguments were made by both the prosecution and defense.
Defense attorneys argued that Fuentes' age at the time of the offense should be a factor in determining the severity of the sentence.
Defense attorney Kathy Lowthrop urged jurors not to blame "a stupid 19-year-old" for "silly things he shouldn't have done," while Christy Jack asked the jury to "Think about when you were 19; how mature were you?" Requesting only probation for Fuentes, Jack concluded by suggesting the jury levy a fine to "send him a message," but asked they "please not throw the rest of his life away."
Prosecutor Lucas Allan denounced the defendant's refusal to accept responsibility for his role in the assault, reminding jurors that even when faced with the photographic evidence of himself committing the act, everything was "someone elses' fault." Calling the defense's claim that the drugs Fuentes took were responsible for his behavior a "predictable farce," Allan countered, "Nowhere on a Xanax bottle does it say 'Caution: May cause you to rape women and swipe their stolen debit cards.
Allan spoke of the victim's experience and difficult road ahead saying, "It's a horribly sad situation all the way around. Everyone walks out of the courtroom today a loser ... but we hope the guilty verdict sends a message to all sexual assault survivors past, present and future that we will aggressively advocate on their behalf."
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