Opinion ID: 882501
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: In the camper -- because we never had any

Text: problems before this. We had always gotten along okay. Q. So this incident with the camper was before he touched you? A. This was before anything started. And so we were sitting in the camper just talking and everything. He said, I want to show you something, and he said, 1 will be right back. So he went in the house, came back in the camper, and he threw a magazine that was covered up on the table, and he went back in and he goes, 1'11 be back in a minute. And so I uncovered it, and it was like a Penthouse or something like that. Q. Then what happened? A. He came back in and he goes, What do you think? [I] go, What do you mean, what do I think? And I went, I don't think so. So I went in and kissed my sister and I left. The majority opinion holds that the testimony of K.L. as to the three other prior acts fails to reach the requisite standard of sufficient similarity and is only evidence of Cristls character. I disagree with this analysis. The showing of a pornographic magazine to K.L., then a thirteen-year-old girl, stating that he was Ifgoing to get her [K.L. ] drunk and take advantage of her and telling her to take her clothes off and put on a nightgown are indeed subtle forms of grooming a child for an act of sexual abuse. The sexual assault to which K.L. testified Crist subjected her followed very closely after his three other acts grooming K.L. for the sexual assault that followed. If, as the majority opinion holds, the actual sexual assault upon K.L. is admissible as a prior act of Crist, then certainly these other three prior acts are also admissible as a grooming of K.L. for the sexual assault upon her, and cannot be held as not similar. These acts of grooming of K.L. are not only similar to the actual sexual assault committed upon her but are a prelude and inextricably a part of Cristls plan and sexual assault. Crist cannot complain that the admission of the testimony concerning the other three prior acts prejudiced him. He was charged in Count Two with sexual abuse against B.C., an eight-yearold boy, and the jury found him not guilty on this count. In Count Three, Crist was charged with sexual assault upon J.S., a fourteenyear-old girl, and the jury hung on this charge--eight for guilty and four for innocent. Count Three was thereafter dismissed. I would affirm the jury conviction and sentence imposed by the District Court.