The Supreme Court of Justice, meeting in the Constitutional Chamber, ordered a new trial to determine the innocence or guilt of the police officer of the state of La Guaira, Luis Carmelo Mendoza Fuentes, according to sentence 1,663 published on October 29.
Mendoza Fuentes was arrested on February 15, 2020 along with other regional police officials identified as Gleyder Luis Ruiz Echenique and Erik Barrios García. They were charged with the crimes of aggravated sexual violence and conspiracy.
These crimes were allegedly committed in February 2020 against Braneisi Belen Hidalgo Moran, who was taken from the vicinity of the Jardines Plaza Shopping Center to the Plaza Mayor police station, located in Catia La Mar, where they sexually abused her in various ways, according to her testimony.
The three uniformed officers were taken to trial on three occasions, due to irregularities committed in the criminal prosecution. These three trials took place between August 19, 2021 and September 22, 2024 before the 1st Accidental Trial Court with Jurisdiction over Crimes of Violence against Women in the state of La Guaira.
On that last date, Judge Ysamar Marcano Narváez, in charge of the aforementioned court, handed down a sentence by which she acquitted the police officers Gleyder Luis Ruiz Echenique and Erik Barrios García, while the officer Luis Carmelo Mendoza Fuentes was sentenced to 20 years in prison after declaring him guilty of the crime of aggravated sexual violence.
That conviction was endorsed on October 24, 2024 by the 31st Accidental Chamber of the Court of Appeals for Crimes of Violence Against Women of La Guaira. And it is precisely that last sentence that Luis Carmelo Mendoza Fuentes requested to review before the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ.
But when analyzing the file as a whole, the Constitutional Chamber reviewed ex officio the ruling of the trial court that acquitted two police officers and convicted Mendoza Fuentes. And when delving into that ruling, he found that it “is involved in the vices of omissive inconsistency and silence of evidence, being evident the infringement of the constitutional rights to defense, due process and effective judicial protection of the applicant.”
Based on that and other reasoning, the Chamber annulled said sentence, as well as the one issued by the Court of Appeals that supported the sentence imposed on Mendoza Fuentes. Consequently, the magistrates ordered a new trial against Mendoza Fuentes to determine whether he is guilty or innocent of the crime of which he is accused. This trial must be opened in a court specialized in violence against women in the metropolitan area of Caracas.
To support its decision, the Constitutional Chamber observes that the victim’s statement was contradicted by two eyewitnesses of the moment in which she approached the police officers and also by the technical inspection with photographic fixation of the scene of the event, which was silenced by the trial court.
The magistrates also observed that the trial court affirms that the victim was sexually abused by Mendoza Fuentes, ”however, it remained silent and did not consider the medical-legal examination carried out on the applicant, which showed “… that they did not find external physical injuries to describe…”
The affective tone of the victim
In the three trials held against the trio of police officials from La Guaira, a forensic psychologist testified who in her conclusions, on the occasion of the interview given by the victim, stated that “…the citizen showed an emotional tone consistent with the events she recounts”, outlines the ruling of the Constitutional Chamber through which the magistrates reproach the actions of the Guaireño trial court.
In relation to this conclusion of the psychologist, Judge Marcano Narváez expressed that it raised doubts in her mind “since she could be in charge of a situation that was magnified by this.” In this regard, the magistrates consider that the trial judge should have opened up to analyze all the evidence presented in the debate.
