It took an Ector County jury less than 15 minutes Tuesday to convict an Odessa man of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old Odessa girl over the course of several months three years ago.
The 161st Ector County District Court jury will now have to determine what punishment Joel John Valdez, 27, should receive on two counts of sexual assault of a child.
Prosecutors Kortney Williams and Rikki Earnest presented evidence Valdez was convicted of sexual assault in March 2016 and if the jurors believe the evidence, Valdez will receive two mandatory life sentences. If they disbelieve the evidence, the jury can impose a prison sentence of two to 20 years on each count. Regardless of what the jury decides, it will be up to retired Judge Tryon Lewis whether the sentences should be concurrent or consecutive.
On Monday, the girl testified she was a high school freshman when she met Valdez via Snapchat in August 2019. She said they had sex for the first time the day before she turned 16 and at the time, she believed he was 18. She testified that over the course of the next several months, she would sneak him into her bedroom when her mother was asleep and he hung out there while her mother was at work and she was at school.
The girl told jurors they had unprotected sex nearly every day, even after she found out he was actually a 24-year-old convicted sex offender because she believed herself in love with him. She only broke up with him after discovering he was cheating on her with another 16-year-old.
The girl testified she found out Valdez was married a short time after that when authorities knocked on her door and informed her his wife had reported their relationship.
During closing arguments Tuesday afternoon, defense attorney Phillip Wildman acknowledged Valdez and the girl had been involved in a relationship, but said the only person saying they had sexual relations was the girl. He tried to cast doubt on her story, noting she testified she didn’t see anything distinctive about Valdez’s genitalia despite the fact his wife testified he had a mole.
Williams told jurors the girl did notice something distinctive, the fact Valdez is uncircumcised. She reminded jurors Valdez’s wife, Brihana Valdez, also said he was uncircumcised. Brihana Valdez also described the mole as being small and in a location that might go unnoticed in the place where Valdez and the girl had sex – a dark bedroom, alley and a car.
The girl had no reason to lie about their relationship, in fact she said she was sad, not mad when she found out he was a sex offender, Williams said. She also wasn’t the one who reported their relationship.
Williams also urged jurors to remember the testimony of the victim from the 2016 conviction. She told them they can use her testimony and that conviction to judge Valdez’s character and prior acts.
The now 24-year-old testified that in 2013 Valdez held her down so her 15-year-old boyfriend, his step-brother, Joshua Lozano, could rape her and then switched places with him, so he could rape her, too. Both brothers were arrested and Valdez pleaded guilty to sexual assault and placed on 10 years’ deferred probation. It’s unclear what happened to Lozano’s case as he was a juvenile at the time. He is currently serving a five-year prison sentence in an unrelated aggravated sexual assault of a child case.
Wildman tried to cast doubt on the 2013 victim’s story. He reminded them the 2013 victim never told authorities Valdez actually raped her; she only told them he held her down while his brother raped her. Court documents indicate he pleaded guilty in March 2016 to encouraging his brother to sexually assault her.
While the details of the 2013 and 2019 case vary, Williams said that simply means Valdez “just got better at sexually assaulting children. He didn’t have to hold them down, he just had to tell them he loved them.”
She asked jurors to remember the testimony of Stephanie Schoen, a licensed professional counselor who has treated both sex offenders and their victims. Although she didn’t know anything about Valdez and the girl, prosecutors called her to the stand to talk about sex offenders and how they pick their victims and groom them for sexual relationships.
Williams pointed out Valdez mirrored the actions of someone with hebephilia, a person who is sexually attracted to pubescent children. He selected the girl in the current case because she had low self-esteem and was left on her own much of the time, he isolated her, he flattered her and he took steps to maintain her infatuation with him, she said.
“You’d have to do a lot of mental gymnastics” in order to believe they weren’t having sex, Williams said.
He was sneaking into her house, hiding in her closets, posing for pictures in her bed and lying about his age, “but don’t worry, they didn’t have sex,” Williams said sarcastically.
“The truth is, he picked her. He chose her and he told her he loved her” in order to have sex with her, Williams said.
After the jury reached its verdict, the prosecutors called to the stand the woman who they believe unknowingly broke up Valdez and the girl in the current case.
Now 19, the woman said she met Valdez through Facebook in April 2020 shortly before turning 17. She testified Valdez reached out to her through Instant Messenger and told her he was an 18-year-old named Xavier. They had unprotected sex the first time they met and he initiated it, she said.
A short time into their relationship, the woman said she was tagged in a photo on Facebook by Brihana Valdez saying, “tell your man to come sign these divorce papers.”
Up until that moment, she said she didn’t know “Xavier’s” real name, she didn’t know his age and she didn’t know he was married. When she Googled his real name, she learned he’d been accused of sexually assaulting another 16-year-old, but he told her it wasn’t true and he was fighting the charges, she said.
She continued to have a relationship with him even after he was arrested, but eventually broke up with him despite his attempts to keep their relationship going, she testified.
Eddie Guerrero, Valdez’s probation officer from the 2013 case, testified that even before Brihana Valdez told him Valdez was having sex with underage girls, Valdez was already in trouble for missing sex offender treatment sessions, failing to do his homework and for falling behind on his fees.
Valdez was charged with failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements imposed after the 2013 case when he absconded after the allegations were made in the current case, Guerrero said.
