Opinion ID: 62340
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sheena Cheneau

Text: Cheneau met Dillon at municipal court. She was the victim in a battery case Dillon was prosecuting. Dillon told Cheneau that she looked sexy and fine. On September 9, 2004, Cheneau asked Dillon if he could fix some traffic tickets for her, and she gave him her phone number. They later set up an appointment to resolve her outstanding tickets at Dillon's private office. At that meeting, Dillon began rubbing her shoulders. The gesture was unwanted and made Cheneau feel uncomfortable, but no other contact occurred during that meeting. In mid-November 2004, Cheneau returned to Dillon's office because she needed money to repair her mother's car, which Cheneau had been driving when another vehicle caused an accident. Dillon gave her $300 to fix her car. He then told her to come into the next room where he began massaging her breasts. She asked him to stop, but he pushed her down onto the couch, pinned her arms back, and sexually assaulted her in a physically similar manner to how he attacked Carter and would later attack Carraby. During the rape, Dillon told Cheneau: I'm a powerful person. I know people in all places and I will destroy you and your family. And nobody will ever work in this city again. After the sexual assault, Dillon made Cheneau clean up the couch and then she left his office. Dillon testified his sex with Cheneau was consensual. Dillon admits that Cheneau's alleged sexual assault meets Rule 413's definition of an offense of sexual assault and that it was similar to the charged offenses except that there is no indication that the conduct occurred under color of law. As discussed above, evidence of a sexual assault admitted under Rule 413 need not be similar in every respect to the charged offense; it only needs to be probative as to some element of the charged offense. Here, the alleged sexual assault occurred in the same location and in a similar manner to the charged offenses. It also happened within a few weeks of Carraby's sexual assault. These similarities make Cheneau's testimony probative of whether Carter and Carraby consented to sex with Dillon and corroborates their testimony regarding how their sexual assaults occurred. Furthermore, a reasonable jury could have found that Dillon's statements that he was a powerful person, who knew people in all places, and who could destroy [Cheneau] and [her] family were invocations of his official position and thus probative of his willingness to invoke his purported authority for his private ends. And, these statements were also somewhat like the similar statements to Carter and Carraby intended to prevent them from reporting him. Dillon also argues that Cheneau's testimony is inadmissible because it was not sufficiently credible to have been submitted to the jury under Rule 104(b). [7] To support this argument, he cites a Tenth Circuit case in which the defendant asserted that a different victim's testimony about an uncharged sexual assault should not have been admitted because her testimony failed to establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that she was sexually assaulted. United States v. Enjady, 134 F.3d 1427, 1434 (10th Cir.1998). Specifically, Dillon cites a passage from the opinion in which the court noted that the victim's contemporaneous police report helped support the victim's testimony. Id. From this, he extrapolates that corroboration is necessary when assessing whether allegations of uncharged sexual misconduct are admissible. This passage, however, is inapplicable to this case. In Enjady, the Tenth Circuit held that before evidence of uncharged sexual assaults is admitted under Rule 413, the district court must make a preliminary finding that a jury could reasonably find by a preponderance of the evidence that the other act occurred. Enjady, 134 F.3d at 1433. The district court there, however, refused to conduct a hearing to determine whether evidence from the victim of an uncharged assault could support a finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant sexually assaulted her. Id. at 1434. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit ultimately sustained admission of the evidence, despite the lack of a hearing, because it was corroborated by the police report. Id. The district court in the present case, however, did hold a pretrial hearing, at which it considered Jones's and Cheneau's allegations and determined that they were relevant, probative, and admissible and that a reasonable jury could find by a preponderance of the evidence that these acts were sexual assaults committed by the defendant. Thus, no corroboration would have been required under the Tenth Circuit rule applied in Enjady. More importantly, Rule 104(b) does not require corroboration. [8] It only requires that the district court consider the witness's testimony and determine that a reasonable jury could find by a preponderance of the evidence that the asserted sexual assault of that victim by the defendant occurred. [9] This is exactly what the district court did here. In this case, the district court weighed allegations of four prior uncharged sexual assaults. It admitted the testimony of Jones and Cheneau because their alleged sexual assaults occurred within weeks of one of the charged offenses, Dillon met the women through his position as an ACA, Cheneau's assault happened in a similar manner to the charged offenses, and Dillon offered to use his power to dismiss Jones's traffic tickets in exchange for sex. This evidence was undoubtably prejudicial to Dillon's case. Relevant evidence is inherently prejudicial; but it is only unfair prejudice, substantially outweighing probative value, which permits exclusion of relevant matter under Rule 403. United States v. Pace, 10 F.3d 1106, 1115-16 (5th Cir.1993) (quoting United States v. McRae, 593 F.2d 700, 707 (5th Cir.1979)). The district court clearly kept this distinction in mind because it excluded the testimony of two other alleged victims. It held that their testimony would have been unfairly prejudicial because those two alleged sexual assaults were remote in time and dissimilar in their commission to the charged offenses. The district court took great care in weighing the evidence of all these prior sexual assaults. It admitted those that it determined to be relevant, and it excluded those that it determined to be unfairly prejudicial. In making these decisions, we are unable to conclude, under the applicable standard of review, that the district court abused its discretion.