RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif.—After an all-day preliminary hearing in San Bernardino Superior Court on Thursday that centered around a graphic and dramatic audio recording of a nine-year-old girl describing her alleged sexual abuse at the hands of Mercedes Carrera and her partner Daemon Cins, Judge Ingrid Adamson Uhler ruled that there was enough evidence for the county to take the case to a jury trial.
Uhler dismissed two firearms charges against the couple, but held Carrera and Cins to answer for 16 counts, including multiple incidents of oral copulation as well as sexual penetration.
In the audio recording, the alleged victim, who has been identified as Carrera's daughter, stated only that she had felt Cins’ penis against her clitoris, which defense attorney Joshua Castro argued did not constitute “penetration.” But prosecutor Brianne Durose argued that under the legal definition of sexual penetration of a child, only the “opening of the genitalia” need be penetrated for a charge of sexual intercourse with a minor, not necessarily the “vaginal canal.”
The judge accepted the prosecutor’s contention, ruling that the sexual intercourse charges may go forward.
In one especially dramatic moment in the alleged victim’s recorded statement to San Bernardino Sheriff’s Deputy Steven Theis, the girl named in court only as “Jane Doe” claimed that a video existed that showed her performing oral copulation on Cins’ penis. She alleged that Carrera filmed the video using a smartphone.
But neither Theis nor Sheriff’s Department Detective Donald Patton—who testified that he executed a search warrant at Carrera and Cins’ apartment—confirmed the existence of the video, and Durose would not comment on the video issue.
Carrera and Cins have been ordered to appear August 19 for arraignment on the standing charges.
