Title: State v. Vrooman

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT     
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2013 ME 69 
Docket: 
Lin-12-334 
Argued: 
April 9, 2013 
Decided: 
July 30, 2013 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and SILVER, MEAD, GORMAN, and JABAR, JJ. 
 
 
STATE OF MAINE 
 
v. 
 
GREGORY W. VROOMAN 
 
SAUFLEY, C.J. 
[¶1]  Gregory W. Vrooman appeals from judgments of conviction on four 
counts of unlawful sexual contact (Class C), 17-A M.R.S. § 255-A(1)(E) (2012), 
four counts of unlawful sexual touching (Class D), 17-A M.R.S. § 260(1)(C) 
(2012), and four counts of assault (Class D), 17-A M.R.S. § 207(1)(A) (2012) 
entered by the court (Hjelm, J.) after a jury trial.  Vrooman challenges the court’s 
denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained during the execution of a search 
warrant on his home computer.  He also contests the court’s admission of 
testimony concerning sexually suggestive websites that he viewed on his home and 
work computers.  We affirm the judgment. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
 
[¶2]  In February 2011, the State indicted Vrooman for multiple offenses of 
unlawful sexual contact, unlawful sexual touching, and assault, as well as one 
 
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count of tampering with a witness or informant (Class C), 17-A M.R.S. 
§ 454(1)(A)(2) (2012), all related to allegations that he had sexually assaulted his 
fiancée’s daughter.  Vrooman pleaded not guilty to all charges.  He filed a motion 
to suppress and a motion in limine seeking to prevent the admission of evidence 
obtained through a warrant-based search of his computer and other evidence 
related to his viewing of pornography.  The court denied the motion to suppress.  It 
granted in part and denied in part the motion in limine.  A three-day jury trial was 
held in April 2012.  The jury acquitted Vrooman on the tampering charge and 
found him guilty on all other charges.  
[¶3]  Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the following facts 
rationally support the verdict.  State v. Dolloff, 2012 ME 130, ¶ 3, 58 A.3d 1032.  
Vrooman first met Angela Harrison, the mother of the victim, in Rockland in 2005.  
Soon thereafter, they began dating, and they became engaged in 2008.  Harrison 
had two children from a prior marriage: the victim and her younger brother.  At the 
time that Vrooman and Harrison began their relationship, Harrison’s children were 
in foster care in Massachusetts.1 
 
[¶4]  In October 2006, Harrison successfully reunified with her children, 
who moved to Maine to live with her.  When Harrison regained custody, her 
daughter, the victim, was nine years old, and her son was six years old.  Harrison 
                                        
                     
1  The Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services took custody of the victim and her 
brother in 2001. 
 
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and Vrooman eventually decided to build a house and move in together with the 
children.  The victim was twelve years old when the family moved into the new 
house in mid-October 2009.  The victim and her brother each had their own rooms, 
which were located at the opposite end of the house from the master bedroom 
where Vrooman and Harrison slept.  
 
[¶5]  Vrooman would sometimes look at pornography on the desktop 
computer located in the master bedroom.  Vrooman’s “porn issue” bothered 
Harrison and resulted in personal tension between them.  On one occasion, the 
victim’s brother walked into the master bedroom and witnessed Vrooman looking 
at pornography on the desktop computer.  Vrooman, a Maine State Police Trooper, 
also viewed sexually suggestive websites on his State Police laptop.  In early 
November 2010, Vrooman conducted Internet searches on his desktop computer 
using the search term “Teen Dancing” and on his laptop using the terms “You 
Tube Teen” and “Teen Dancing.”  He viewed webpages, with web addresses that 
included terms such as “Hot-Slutty-Teen-Dancing,” that depicted, among other 
things, sixteen- to twenty-five-year-old females dancing provocatively in their 
underwear. 
 
[¶6]  Soon after moving into the new house in October 2009, Vrooman 
began visiting the victim’s bedroom wearing only his underwear and a T-shirt.  
Describing the first incident, the victim testified that, while she was sitting or lying 
 
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face-up on her bed, Vrooman straddled her and put his hands under her bra and 
underwear and touched her breasts and genitals.  
 
[¶7]  The victim testified that these incidents occurred five or six times while 
she lived at the new house.  During the subsequent incidents, the victim attempted 
to stop Vrooman from touching her by lying on her stomach.  She was 
unsuccessful because, as she testified, he would “forcefully shove his hands under 
me and then put them in my pants.”  His hands would go under the victim’s shirt 
and bra, touching or grabbing her breasts.  Vrooman would tell the victim to be 
quiet to prevent Harrison from hearing anything or waking up.  These incidents 
made the victim feel “[u]ncomfortable, confused, scared,” and “lost.”   
 
[¶8]  The victim’s younger brother saw Vrooman on top of the victim in the 
victim’s bed on two occasions.  On one occasion, the boy looked through an 
opening in his sister’s closed door and saw Vrooman on top of his sister’s waist 
with his “knees . . . on her arms so they couldn’t move.”  He believed that 
Vrooman was tickling his sister.  When he opened the door, Vrooman “pulled his 
hands away really fast.”  On another occasion, the victim’s brother witnessed 
Vrooman on top of the victim and the victim’s “shirt was pulled up and his hands 
were on her stomach.” 
[¶9]  In November 2010, the victim told a friend about Vrooman’s actions.  
The friend shared the victim’s account of the events with her counselor, who then 
 
5 
reported this conversation to the Department of Health and Human Services.  That 
report led to the charges and Vrooman’s eventual convictions.  The court sentenced 
Vrooman to five years’ incarceration with all but twenty-one months suspended 
and four years of probation on the counts of unlawful sexual contact.  Vrooman 
also received a concurrent sentence of 364 days in jail on the counts of unlawful 
sexual touching and assault.  Vrooman appeals from those convictions.   
II.  DISCUSSION 
A. 
Motion to Suppress 
[¶10]  Vrooman first challenges the court’s denial of his motion to suppress 
the evidence obtained from his computer pursuant to a search warrant issued on 
December 8, 2010.  He argues that the warrant was not supported by probable 
cause and that the jurat of the warrant affidavit was defective.  
[¶11]  We review the court’s denial of Vrooman’s suppression motion “for 
clear error as to factual issues and de novo as to issues of law.”  State v. Gurney, 
2012 ME 14, ¶ 30, 36 A.3d 893.  “We uphold the court’s denial of a motion to 
suppress if any reasonable view of the evidence supports the trial court’s decision.”  
State v. Drewry, 2008 ME 76, ¶ 19, 946 A.2d 981 (quotation marks omitted). 
[¶12]  We first address Vrooman’s probable cause challenge, reviewing 
directly “the finding of probable cause made by the judicial officer who issued the 
warrant, affording that finding great deference,” and drawing all reasonable 
 
6 
inferences to support that finding.  State v. Nigro, 2011 ME 81, ¶ 26, 24 A.3d 1283 
(quotation marks omitted).  “Probable cause is established when, given all the 
circumstances set forth in the affidavit before [the judicial officer], including the 
veracity and basis of knowledge of persons supplying hearsay information, there is 
a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a 
particular place.”  Id. (alteration in original) (quotation marks omitted).  “Technical 
requirements of elaborate specificity once exacted under common law pleadings 
have no proper place in this area.”  State v. Ward, 624 A.2d 485, 487 (Me. 1993) 
(quotation marks omitted). 
[¶13]  The affidavit in support of the warrant included representations that 
Vrooman claimed that he unintentionally touched the victim’s breasts and put his 
hand down her pants only to give her a “wedgie”; that he used his home and work 
computers to view sexually suggestive images of young women, including some 
who appeared to be teenagers; and that he had an issue with pornography and had 
obtained counseling to address it.  The motion court reasoned that, even if the 
images viewed by Vrooman on his home computer were not “inherently illegal,” 
those images were “arguably probative of the absence of mistake or accident” as 
required for the admission of evidence of past wrongful conduct pursuant to Maine 
Rule of Evidence 404(b). 
 
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[¶14]  Contrary to Vrooman’s argument, the search warrant affidavit 
contained evidence sufficient to support a finding that there was a fair probability 
that evidence of the alleged crimes—specifically, evidence that Vrooman acted 
intentionally when he touched the victim—would be found on Vrooman’s home 
computer.  See 17-A M.R.S. §§ 207(1)(A), 255-A(1)(E), 260(1)(C); Gurney, 2012 
ME 14, ¶ 32, 36 A.3d 893; Nigro, 2011 ME 81, ¶ 26, 24 A.3d 1283. 
[¶15]  Turning to the defective jurat, Vrooman did establish that the affidavit 
contained an error in its identification of the officer who swore to the information 
articulated in the affidavit.  Specifically, the identification of the averring officer 
was at odds with the affiant named in the jurat.  The introductory portion of the 
affidavit indicated that Detective Peter Lizanecz swore under oath to the facts 
supporting probable cause, and the signature on the affidavit appears to be that of 
Detective Lizanecz.  The jurat, however, reads, “Appeared before me under oath 
on this date the above-named Sgt. Glenn Lang and signed and swore to the truth of 
the facts contained in the foregoing instrument.”  (Emphasis added.) 
[¶16]  The court held a nontestimonial hearing on the challenge to the 
warrant raised in the motion to suppress, and neither party asked the court to take 
testimony on the apparent error in the jurat.  The best practice would be to offer the 
brief testimony of the swearing detective or an affidavit from him indicating that 
the signature was his and not the signature of Lang.  However, neither party 
 
8 
actually challenged the fact that Lizanecz signed the affidavit.  Accordingly, the 
court found that Lizanecz, not Lang, was the affiant who swore to the truth of the 
information supporting the warrant application.  There is no error in that finding, 
and once the court determined that the person who was initially named as the 
affiant and the person who swore to the truth of the facts in the affidavit were the 
same person, it did not err in concluding that the clerical error in the jurat did not 
affect the validity of the warrant.  See Gurney, 2012 ME 14, ¶ 30, 36 A.3d 893; 
Drewry, 2008 ME 76, ¶ 19, 946 A.2d 981; Ward, 624 A.2d at 487; cf. State v. 
Johnson, 2009 ME 6, ¶¶ 7, 18, 962 A.2d 973 (holding that an imperfect property 
description did not undermine the validity of a warrant); Herrick v. Theberge, 474 
A.2d 870, 874 (Me. 1984) (upholding the validity of an affidavit in support of 
attachment despite a “sloppily prepared” jurat). 
[¶17]  Thus, the court did not err in denying Vrooman’s motion to suppress. 
B. 
Evidentiary Rulings 
 
1. 
Pretrial Motions 
[¶18]  Both parties filed motions in limine in early April 2012.  The State 
sought to offer testimonial and visual evidence of Internet searches and websites 
visited by Vrooman on his home and work computers.  Vrooman moved to 
exclude, pursuant to Maine Rule of Evidence 403, any evidence of him having an 
“issue with” or viewing pornography.  Pursuant to Maine Rules of Evidence 401, 
 
9 
403, and 404(b), he also requested that the court exclude evidence pertaining to 
images taken by police from his “workplace or home computers showing teenage 
girls either partially nude or otherwise.” 
[¶19]  At a consolidated nontestimonial hearing, the State argued that the 
evidence gathered from the home and work computers should be admitted—
primarily through the testimony of Special Agent Matt Fasulo, who conducted the 
forensic investigation of the computers—to show Vrooman’s motive, lack of 
misunderstanding or mistake, and intent to commit the charged offenses.  Fasulo 
would testify that the images found on Vrooman’s computers depicted what 
appeared to be teenage girls, and the State would offer further evidence of the lack 
of mistake by publishing to the jury an image entitled “Teen Dancing” that showed 
a young female dancing in her underwear and appeared to have been filmed by a 
webcam in a bedroom. 
[¶20]  Vrooman argued that the evidence of Internet searches and images 
was highly prejudicial and unrelated to the victim and the alleged conduct 
underlying the charged offenses.  Vrooman also argued against admitting evidence 
that he generally had an “issue with pornography” or that he had agreed to attend 
counseling with Harrison because this issue bothered her.   
[¶21]  The court determined that the specific evidence regarding images of 
teens or young women was relevant and admissible pursuant to Rules 401 and 
 
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404(b) to show absence of mistake and intent.  Performing a pretrial Rule 403 
analysis, the court limited the evidence to a testimonial recitation regarding the 
images of teenagers or young women.  To minimize the potential prejudice, the 
court ruled that the actual website images would not be allowed in evidence unless, 
at trial, a significant question arose about the nature of the searches or the material 
found on the computer.   
[¶22]  Ultimately, in its pretrial ruling, the court noted that the images 
themselves were “not inherently illegal,” which reduced their prejudicial effect, 
and the court concluded that the testimonial evidence was not unfairly prejudicial 
pursuant to Rule 403.  Making clear the preliminary nature of its pretrial rulings, 
the court explained to the parties, “[W]e may have to fine tune [the evidentiary 
rulings] as we go along,” although “as a general matter the State’s evidence would 
be admissible.”  The court also informed the parties that, if requested, it would be 
receptive to giving the jury a limiting instruction concerning the Internet searches.   
[¶23]  At the conclusion of the pretrial hearing, the State agreed to limit its 
questioning to instances that were relevant to the charged conduct, and Vrooman’s 
attorney informed the court that he was willing to work with the State to resolve 
his objection to this evidence.  
[¶24]  We discern no error in the court’s pretrial rulings.  The limited 
testimony allowed by the court was directly relevant to refute Vrooman’s claim 
 
11 
that his repeated touching of the victim’s breasts was a mistake.   Evidence of other 
bad acts is admissible if “probative of motive or intent rather than propensity to 
commit crime.”  State v. Lemay, 2012 ME 86, ¶ 26, 46 A.3d 1113.  The court did 
not err in determining, pursuant to Rules 401 and 404(b), that the evidence of 
Vrooman viewing teenage girls or young women in suggestive and provocative 
settings was admissible because it was directly relevant to his intentions and 
assertions of mistake in his conduct with the twelve-year-old victim. 
[¶25]  We further conclude that the court acted within its discretion in 
determining that the probative value of the testimony was not substantially 
outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.  See M.R. Evid. 403.  The court’s 
Rule 403 analysis, carefully undertaken, balanced the relevance of the evidence 
against the potential prejudice to Vrooman by limiting the evidence to testimony 
about his viewing of images of teenage girls or young women, rather than 
pornography generally.  The court’s ruling that the evidence would be presented 
through testimony rather than publication of the specific images further reduced 
the risk of prejudice to Vrooman. 
 
2. 
Trial Rulings 
 
[¶26]  Although Vrooman did not object at trial to testimony that differed 
from the expected testimony described at the pretrial conference, we take this 
opportunity to address this not-unusual circumstance in criminal proceedings when 
 
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a defendant has raised a Rule 403 issue in limine.  As is often the case in trials, not 
all of the evidence described to the court before trial came in exactly as anticipated 
at the pretrial hearing.  The record indicates that Harrison made statements to 
police before trial that Vrooman had a “porn issue.”  Vrooman objected in limine 
to the admission of evidence regarding a generalized issue with pornography.  
Harrison also told the police before trial that Vrooman viewed pornography 
portraying young women or teenage girls.  The State indicated at the in limine 
hearing that it expected to focus its questions on the more specific teen and young 
adult pornography that the court had determined was relevant.  At trial, however, 
Harrison testified only regarding her more general observation that Vrooman “had 
a porn issue.”2 
[¶27]  Vrooman could have objected to Harrison’s testimony about him 
having “a porn issue,” arguing that the probative value of evidence that he looked 
at pornography, without more, was substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair 
prejudice.  See M.R. Evid. 403.  However, likely for tactical reasons, Vrooman 
chose not to object.3  This situation—illustrating the unpredictable nature of 
                                        
                     
2  Fasulo did testify as anticipated.  He described the evidence found on Vrooman’s home and work 
computers, which included Internet searches using search terms such as “Teen Dancing” that led to 
websites that contained sexually suggestive videos purporting to depict teenage girls. 
 
3  Vrooman, after waiving his Fifth Amendment right not to testify, took the stand and admitted to 
viewing provocative images depicting teens on his home and work computers.  He testified that he did not 
find the images showing teenagers sexually arousing but “would get a kick out of watching these kids 
prancing around trying to imitate their favorite singers or whatever on MTV and trying to act all big and 
 
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trials—exemplifies why pretrial Rule 403 rulings are generally preliminary and 
why, if the unanticipated testimony is considered damaging, counsel must be 
prepared to object when testimony offered at trial differs from, or goes beyond, 
what the court allowed in an earlier ruling or when the context for the ruling has 
changed. 
[¶28]  In the context of Vrooman’s trial, we conclude that the admission of 
Harrison’s testimony regarding a general pornography problem did not result in an 
obvious error.  See M.R. Crim. P. 52(b); State v. Pabon, 2011 ME 100, ¶ 18, 28 
A.3d 1147 (characterizing “obvious error as a seriously prejudicial error tending to 
produce manifest injustice” (quotation marks omitted)).  Her testimony was brief 
and was accompanied by the testimony of others—including Harrison’s son, 
Fasulo, and Vrooman himself—all of whom focused on the specific images 
purportedly depicting teenage girls or young women.  The admission of the more 
general testimony concerning “a porn issue” did not affect Vrooman’s substantial 
rights because he has not shown a reasonable probability that, but for the 
admission of that testimony, the result of the proceeding would have been 
different.  See M.R. Crim. P. 52(b); Pabon, 2011 ME 100, ¶¶ 29, 34-35, 28 A.3d 
1147. 
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                   
 
grown up.”  According to his testimony, it was possible that he viewed such images before going into the 
victim’s bedroom.  Vrooman admitted that he did touch the victim’s breasts on “a couple of occasions.” 
He also conceded, “There were probably times . . . that I would straddle her to hold her down to tickle 
her. . . . I never touched her inappropriately intentionally anyway.  But would I hold her down?  Yes.” 
 
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The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
_____________________________________ 
 
On the briefs: 
 
Stephen C. Peterson, Esq., West Rockport, for appellant Gregory W. 
Vrooman 
 
Janet T.  Mills, Attorney General, and Deborah P. Cashman, Asst. Atty. 
Gen., Office of Attorney General, Augusta, for appellee State of Maine  
 
 
At oral argument: 
 
 
Stephen C. Peterson, Esq., for appellant Gregory W. Vrooman 
 
 
Deborah P. Cashman, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee State of Maine 
 
 
Lincoln County Superior Court docket number CR-2010-387 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY