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This article contains descriptions of an alleged sexual assault. AZPM is not publishing the victim’s name out of respect for her anonymity.
Ricardo Garcia’s trial resumed on Thursday with more testimony focused on the validity of DNA evidence and painting a picture of what responding deputies encountered in the early morning hours of Dec. 18, 2022.
He is accused of sexually assaulting another deputy two years ago at a School Resource Unit Christmas party at his house.
Garcia’s allegations, subsequent firing, and suspicion from both the Board of Supervisors and the Arizona Attorney General have made the events of Dec. 17 and 18th, 2022 a high-profile case for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, and one that has called the alleged retaliatory behaviors of top officials into question.
Deputy Blanca Paiaina was the first officer to interact with the victim when she emerged from Ricardo Garcia’s house around 4 am. She said the victim was covering her exposed top half with a blanket.
When the victim tried to go back inside the house, Paiaina said she intervened because of the condition she found her in.
“I did not want to let her go back inside the residence because of the information I had already received from my initial reportee, as well as seeing her for the first time, her condition, her safety was my priority at that point,” she said.
Paiaina testified the victim was still slurring her speech and had to be told several times to zip up the jacket Paiaina had given her to cover herself.
Brian Kunze, a now-retired Sergeant and the next in Paiaina’s chain of command responded to the scene around the same time. He testified he also planned to keep the victim from returning inside.
“Mainly because of her intoxication level, that she wasn’t able to make clear decisions, and with what we were investigating, I did not want her to go back inside of that environment,” he said.
In text messages read in court, Kunze expressed concerns that PCSD deputies were handling the investigation, and not an outside law enforcement agency, because of his prior knowledge about Garcia.
Kunze was also Garcia’s mentor for two weeks when he was going through the Sergeant training program. During that time, Kunze said he witnessed examples of a close relationship between Nanos and the defendant, including calls Nanos made to Garcia’s personal number while they were together in Kunze’s squad car.
“At times his phone would ring, and he would kind of chuckle, and then he [Garcia] would turn and show the phone to me…several times it was the sheriff. And then when he went to answer it, he would answer on a first-name basis,” he said.
He said Nanos also called Garcia in the briefing room.
“He made sure, anybody in the room, he would show them his phone, and he would get up, answer it on a first-name basis, and walk out of the room,” Kunze said.
Kunze said he also saw personal photos the sheriff had sent to Garcia of them together out of uniform.
The victim previously characterized the relationship between Garcia and Nanos as “best friends,” in yesterday’s testimony.
“That night at the party, Mr. Garcia was bragging about how the following year he was going to be lieutenant thanks to Sheriff Nanos, and he's even said before in the past that he’s best friends with Nanos because he can call him at any time even when he’s drunk, or Sheriff Nanos is out of the state,” she said.
She said that relationship made her fear for her career, and was one of the reasons she did not come forward right away.
DNA Evidence
DNA analyst Alan Ackroyd-Isales took the stand in Thursday’s morning testimony. Ackroyd-Isales ran the DNA profile from the victim's clothes and other items collected at the scene of the alleged assault.
He said DNA evidence cannot directly identify people, but instead present a likelihood ratio, which “describes the probability of observing the evidence under two competing scenarios.”
According to his report, a sample taken from the interior of the victim’s pant waistband was "38 quadrillion times" more probable to originate from the victim and Mr. Garcia, than if it originated from the victim and an unknown person.
Another sample taken from her underwear saw a likelihood ratio of 870 billion times more probable.
“This provides very strong support for the proposition that Mr. Garcia is a contributor to the DNA profile obtained from the sample,” he said.
Ackroyd-Isales “very strong support” is the strongest language he is allowed to use when the likelihood ratio is 1 million or higher.
Before trial, Garcia’s defense filed a motion to dismiss Ackroyd-Isales as a witness, on the grounds that he did not do any of the physical lab work on the samples.
Further Coverage:
Wednesday's strategy from the defense focused on inconsistencies made in the victim’s initial interviews with law enforcement on the morning after the party, which the victim testified were because of the shame and embarrassment she felt in coming forward to her colleagues.
Read more about yesterday’s testimony here, and the first day of witnesses here.
Garcia’s case sparked an Attorney General’s investigation into the Pima County Sheriff’s Department earlier this year, which found Sheriff Nanos potentially violated four areas of internal policy in his handling of the case.
Read more about the Attorney General’s findings here.
The trial will resume on Monday, Dec. 9, and is scheduled until at least Thursday, Dec. 12.
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