Opinion ID: 4568309
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The hotel struggle

Text: At trial, Valentino told a very different story. Citing difficulties with his wife and a persistent sex addiction, Valentino acknowledged that he arranged to meet with Islam. At the hotel, Valentino testified that Islam handed him a condom, which he tried to put on. He “didn’t like the texture” and asked Islam “if she [had] another one that is more durable and stronger.” J.A. 266. When Islam said no, Valentino said that he had another in his truck. She agreed to let him retrieve it, and Valentino then claimed to spend “several minutes” retrieving the condom and charging his iPhone in his vehicle. J.A. 267. Islam then again opened the side door of the hotel to let him back in. 7 “Talking and laughing,” the pair returned to the third-floor room. J.A. 268. But “as soon as the door shut, a guy came out of the closet and pointed a gun” at Valentino. J.A. 268. 8 He demanded Valentino’s money, and Valentino threw his wallet on the bed. Islam then checked Valentino’s back pockets. 7 Valentino twice told Islam that he was “driving a white Chrysler with New York plates.” J.A. 44; see also J.A. 52. Yet Islam testified that she did not ask about his car and told him that she didn’t need to know what car he was in. The prosecution argued that Valentino did so to mislead the police if Islam called them after his planned robbery. 8 There were inconsistencies in this testimony. On cross examination, Valentino could not recall whether he was robbed the first time he went into the room or the second time. J.A. 304 (“Q: So nobody robbed you the first time you go into the room. It’s the second time you go into the room? A: Ma’am, I have no idea.”). And in a recorded interview with detectives, Valentino claimed that he had been sitting on the bed with Islam when the man opened the coat closet. 9 When the man went to pat Valentino down, Valentino noticed “the clip in the gun wasn’t all the way down,” so he “started to fight the guy.” J.A. 271. Islam then joined the fray. At trial, Valentino described a physical struggle that lasted “[a]bout three minutes.” J.A. 271–72, 274–76, 279. As he simultaneously fought Islam and her accomplice, Valentino managed to take Islam’s cell phone and put it in his pocket. See J.A. 275 (“I don’t know why I put the phone in my pocket . . . I just did it.”). He would later take Islam’s second cell phone 9 and the gun he wrestled from the man. At one point during the altercation, Valentino was “shaking” Islam when he heard a gunshot. J.A. 382−83; see also J.A. 276. At that moment, Valentino explained, Islam was between him and the man with the gun. When the man fired the gun, Valentino said he immediately entered “survival mode”: I dropped the gun and I dropped the phone and I panicked. [The man] tried to pull me back by my T-shirt. I pulled [the shirt] out of his hand and ran out of the room. I grabbed my keys that were under the TV. J.A. 278–79. Valentino then “deactivated [his] Facebook” out of fear that the assailant would gain information about his family from it and “went straight home.” J.A. 284, 286. Valentino never explained how he had come to hold the gun after the assailant fired it. Nor did he explain how he had retrieved the gun (or the phone) from the room after he dropped it. 9 Valentino claimed that he planned to use her phone to call 911. But he never did, explaining that he “didn’t want to go to the police because [he] [didn’t] want [his] wife to find out [he] was with a prostitute.” J.A. 314. 10