|
Wrongly Convicted Database Record
|
Charge: |
Child/Minor Sexual Assault |
Sentence: |
3 years |
Years Imprisoned: |
3 |
Year Crime: |
2003 |
Year Convicted: |
2004 |
Year Cleared: |
2012 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
New Jersey |
County or Region of Crime: |
Atlantic |
City of Crime: |
Atlantic City |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated |
Summary of Case: |
"Carlos Efrain Lopez-Siguenza was wrongly convicted on March 12, 2004 of sexual assault of a minor in 2002 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Carlos Lopez-Siguenza lived in Northfield, a few miles west of Atlantic City. His prosecution was based on the complaint by Melissa Aguilar Cruz on January 23, 2003 that he had sexual intercourse with her multiple times in 2002 in Atlantic City when she was 15. Cruz was a native of Honduras, and Lopez-Siguenza was 21 at the time and a native of El Salvador. Lopez-Siguenza was arrested in March 2003 and indicted for two counts of second-degree aggravated sexual assault, two counts of fourth-degree child abuse, and two counts of third-degree endangering child welfare. Lopez-Siguenza hired an attorney. He did not deny having sex with the young lady, and he insisted to his lawyer that Cruz was over 16 -- the legal age of sexual consent in New Jersey. To resolve the issue of Cruz' age, his lawyer requested that the prosecution provide a "certified and/or notarized copy of the alleged victim’s birth certificate." The prosecution turned over a purported Honduran birth certificate handwritten in Spanish that was neither notarized or certified, for Melissa Gabriela Aguilar Guerrero with a birth date of March 3, 1987. Lopez-Siguenza's lawyer did not diligently follow-up on investigating the authenticity of the purported birth certificate. Instead his lawyer told him that he had no chance to win a trial. Faced with a long jail sentence if convicted of all charges after a trial, Lopez-Siguenza pled guilty to sexual assault of a minor in exchange for the prosecution dropping his aggravated sexual assault, endangering child welfare, and child abuse charges. Carlos Lopez-Siguenza was sentenced to serve three years in prison. He was released after serving a little more than a year in state prison, and he was immediately taken into federal custody for deportation since his status as a Legal Permanent Resident was revoked due to his felony sexual assault conviction. On April 22, 2005 he was deported to his native El Salvador. In 2011 Lopez-Siguenza was arrested in Utah for being in the country illegally, and on November 23, 2011 he was charged in federal court in Utah, with the U.S. Attorney's Office filing a notice it would be seeking a sentencing enhancement because he had violated his deportation order. His mother hired an immigration lawyer, Jorge Coombs, to investigate his immigration case and his 2004 conviction. Coombs had seen Honduran birth certificates before, so when he saw Cruz' purported birth certificate he knew "there was something fishy with it," because the "number was handwritten." [Fn.1] Coombs contacted Honduras' consul general. On Aug. 2, 2011 Coombs received a letter from consul general that the name "Melissa Gabriela Aguilar Guerrero" did not exist in the Honduran National Register, and that the national identification number on the alleged birth certificate was not in the proper format. Furthermore, the consulate's attorney found a Honduran birth certificate for a "Melissa Gabriela Andino Munoz" born on March 3, 1984, and who was registered as living in southern New Jersey. Coombs interviewed an ex-boyfriend of Cruz who told him that her age was well known in the Hispanic community. So Lopez-Siguenza's accuser was not 15 as she claimed to the police, but she was 18 and two years older than New Jersey's 16 age of consent to have sexual relations. On December 11, 2011 Lopez-Siguenza filed a post-conviction petition to withdraw his guilty plea and vacate his conviction, based on the new evidence that he did not knowingly pled guilty because Cruz lied to the police and provided the fabricated evidence of a fraudulent birth certificate that the Atlantic County District Attorney's Office relied on to prosecute him. The DA’s Office opposed Lopez-Siguenza’s petition, and presented the evidence of a different birth certificate provided by the Cruz’ family -- but which also showed her birth date as March 3, 1987. On August 3, 2012 an Atlantic County judge granted Lopez-Siguenza's petition and vacated his conviction in "finding that Ms. Cruz and/or her family had perpetrated a fraud on the Prosecutor’s Office, the Court, and Plaintiff [Lopez-Siguenza]." [Fn.2] The Atlantic County DA's Office declined to retry him, stating it didn't want to put Cruz and her family through the stress of a trial, and filed a motion to dismiss Lopez-Siguenza's indictment, which was granted on Aug. 17, 2012. Lopez-Siguenza filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on March 28, 2013 in the U.S. District Court in Camden, New Jersey that asserted claims against the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office and Assistant Prosecutor Janet Gravitz, and also alleged legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract by his criminal lawyer Mark E. Roddy. On March 31, 2014 the federal judge dismissed Lopez-Siguenza's claims against the Atlantic City Prosecutors Office and Asst. Prosecutor Gravitz on the basis they were entitled to immunity from civil liability. On September 30, 2014 the judge dismissed Lopez-Siguenza's breach of fiduciary duty and breach of contract claims against Roddy. However, the judge allowed Lopez-Siguenza to amend his legal malpractice claim. On May 27, 2016 Chief U.S. District Judge Jerome Simandle allowed Lopez-Siguenza's lawsuit to go forward, by denying Roddy's motion for summary judgment and to seal documents he filed that identified Cruz as Lopez-Siguenza's accuser. The judge's order noted that Roddy does not speak Spanish, and, "He never attempted to interview persons familiar with Ms. Cruz's age, nor did he ask an investigator to do so, nor did he take any steps to question the foreign document. The suspicious signs included the facts that the name Cruz is nowhere mentioned, no second surname is listed for the father (contrary to Hispanic naming conventions), and the information is handwritten rather than typed. (Parentheses in original)." [Fn.3] Judge Simandle refused to seal Roddy's supporting exhibits to prevent disclosure of Cruz's identity, finding that she was not under the age of 18 when she had sex with Lopez-Siguenza. Fn.1: Seth Augenstein, "Man cleared when child-sex 'victim' proved to be 18 wins right to sue lawyer," NJ.com, October 07, 2014; Fn.2: Lopez-Siguenza v. Roddy, Esquire et al., Civil No. 13-2005 (JBS/JS) (USDC NJ) (Opinion of 5-27-2016); Fn.3: Id." |
Conviction Caused By: |
Perjury by the alleged victim who provided a fraudulent birth certificate. |
Innocence Proved By: |
"In 2012 Lopez-Siguenza filed a petition to vacate his conviction, based on the new evidence that he did not commit a crime and that Guerrero lied to the police and provided the fabricated evidence of a fraudulent birth certificate that the Atlantic County DA relied on to prosecute him. After his petition was granted, the Atlantic County DA's Office declined to retry him and filed a motion to dismiss his indictment, which was granted on Aug. 17, 2012." |
Defendant Aided By: |
|
Compensation Awarded: |
|
Was Perpetrator Identified? |
|
Age When Imprisoned: |
21 |
Age When Released: |
24 |
Sex: |
Male |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
Hispanic |
Information Source 1: |
"Lopez-Siguenza v. Roddy, Esquire et al., Civil No. 13-2005 (JBS/JS) (USDC NJ) (Opinion of 5-27-2016 denying summary judgment for defendant Roddy on the legal malpractice claim.)" |
Information Location 1: |
https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-jersey/njdce/1:2013cv02005/287362/104 |
Information Source 2: |
"Wrongly Convicted Man Has Malpractice Claim, By Rose Bouboushian, Courthouse News Service, May 31, 2016" |
Information Location 2: |
http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/05/31/wrongly-convicted-man-has-malpractice-claim.htm |
Information Source 3: |
"Wrongly Convicted Man May Sue His Lawyer Yet, By Rose Bouboushian, Courthouse News Service, Oct. 3, 2014" |
Information Location 3: |
http://www.courthousenews.com/CNSNEWS/Story/Index/72115 |
Information Source 4: |
"Man cleared when child-sex 'victim' proved to be 18 wins right to sue lawyer, By Seth Augenstein (NJ Advance Media), NJ.com, October 07, 2014" |
Information Location 4: |
http://www.nj.com/atlantic/index.ssf/2014/10/man_jailed_and_deported_on_sex_charges_with_minor_based_on_bogus_birth_certificate_can_sue_former_at.html |
Information Source 5: |
|
Information Location 5: |
|
Book About Case: |
|
Book Information: |
|
Book About Case (2): |
|
Book Information (2): |
|
Movie About Case: |
|
Comments About Case: |
Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org