Heard
in the Court of Appeals February 14, 2019.
Appeal
by defendant from judgment entered 3 April 2018 by Judge Carl
R. Fox in Wake County No. 16 CRS 223217 Superior Court.
Attorney General Joshua H. Stein, by Special Deputy Attorney
General Neil C. Dalton and Assistant Attorney General
Kathryne E. Hathcock, for the State.
Appellate Defender Glenn Gerding, by Assistant Appellate
Defender Katy Dickinson-Schultz, for defendant-appellant.
ZACHARY, Judge.
Defendant
Alexander DeJesus, a.k.a. Alexander Sigaru-Argueta, appeals
from a judgment entered upon a bench verdict finding him
guilty of three counts of statutory rape of a child.
Defendant argues that the trial court erred in (1) denying
his motion to dismiss two counts of statutory rape based on
the corpus delicti rule, (2) admitting a purported
copy of the victim's Honduran birth certificate, and (3)
ordering that he enroll in lifetime satellite-based
monitoring. We affirm the trial court's denial of
Defendant's motion to dismiss, conclude that the trial
court did not err in admitting the copy of the victim's
Honduran birth certificate, and dismiss Defendant's
appeal concerning the trial court's satellite-based
monitoring order.
Background
Defendant
was indicted on 23 January 2017 for three counts of statutory
rape of a child, each with a listed offense date of
"April 1, 2016 through May 31, 2016." Defendant
waived his right to a jury trial, and a bench trial was
thereafter held before the Honorable Carl R. Fox in Wake
County Superior Court beginning on 2 April 2018.
The
evidence tended to show that Defendant was in a relationship
with the victim's mother, and that Defendant, the victim,
and the victim's mother were living together during the
time in question. Sometime during the fall of 2016, the
victim's middle school social worker Megan Vaughan
noticed that the victim was visibly pregnant. The victim was
in seventh grade at the time. After speaking with the victim,
Ms. Vaughan filed an incident report with the Raleigh Police
Department.
When
Detective Alex Doughty met with the victim on 1 December
2016, she identified Defendant as the father of her child.
Detective Doughty took several photographs of the victim in
order "to show her youth and the fact of her age being
what it was. And, unfortunately, . . . because of the stage
of which her stomach appeared to be."
Detective
Doughty also interviewed Defendant on 1 December 2016.
Detective Doughty testified that during the interview, he
"confronted [Defendant] directly" about the
paternity of the victim's child:
[THE STATE:] What was his response to that?
[DETECTIVE DOUGHTY:] I proposed it as an either/or question
to him in regards to that I knew that he was the father of
the child. What I was concerned about was whether or not that
it was consensual or a forced event.
. . . .
Q. What did the defendant say to you about that?
A. He had stated that he had never forced [the victim] and
that everything that had occurred between the two of them was
consensual.
Q. Now, . . . when he said everything that occurred, did you
clarify with him what that meant?
A. He defined that as that they had consensual sex on at
least three occasions that he could account for.
Q. And how, if at all, did he describe the type of sex that
they had?
A. Just vaginal penile. I went into clarity with him about
the several methods in which sex could occur as well as any
potential sex offenses involving cunnilingus, fellatio.
Again, he denied that there was anything other than just
vaginal sex.
. . . .
Q. . . . You said that he said that it was three times?
A. That's correct.
Q. And do you recall anything that he said about those three
different times?
A. No. He only indicated that there was three times.
Q. Did he-do you recall whether he said that they were
...