NewsDirectory: www.gazette.com
Address:http://www.newsdirectory.com/go/?f=&r=co&u=www.gazette.com
Changed:11:08 AM on Wednesday, August 22, 2001
August 22, 2001
[email protected]
Case against alleged serial rapist goes to jurors By Jeremy Meyer/The
Gazette

Jurors on Tuesday began deliberating the fate of Anthony Peralez, a man
prosecutors called every woman’s nightmare: a serial rapist who preyed
on single women older than 50 who lived alone.

Peralez is charged with breaking into the homes of three women from
September 1999 to September 2000, beating them, raping them and forcing
them to bathe to remove evidence.

Peralez faces 51 charges, including being a habitual criminal, which
could triple any sentence imposed and send him to jail for the rest of
his life.

Jurors got the case late Tuesday afternoon and will resume deliberations
this morning.

Peralez’s attorneys contend authorities have the wrong man and are
trying to ruin the life of the 41-year-old, self-employed tree-trimmer
from Security.

In closing arguments Tuesday, public defender William Griffin said the
District Attorney’s Office has created a nightmare for Peralez, who is
guilty of nothing more than breaking into the house of a Knob Hill woman
who lived alone.

That woman, 72-year-old Jean Zamarripa, shot the intruder on the night
of Nov. 18. Peralez, suffering from gunshot wounds, was caught soon
after the shooting when he got into a car accident.

Authorities later used DNA from a bullet found at Zamarripa’s house to
connect Peralez to evidence recovered from the rapes.

Griffin said Peralez is being tried on faulty DNA evidence that
shouldn’t be trusted.

“Mr. Peralez sits before you not guilty of these crimes. What Tony
Peralez did is called criminal trespass. Don’t let the horror of what
happened to these other ladies distract you from the truth.”

Closing arguments came after a morning of testimony from defense
witnesses, including Peralez’s sisters and the grandmother of his
15-year-old son.

All gave an alibi for Peralez on the night of
Sept. 12, 1999, when a Security woman was raped — the first assault for
which Peralez is charged. They said Peralez was with his son and his
niece and nephew that weekend.

He was dropping off the children on the Sunday night when police say the
attack occurred. His family, however, couldn’t account for Peralez’s
whereabouts on nights of the other attacks.

Griffin also disputed identification given by the rape victims of their
attacker.

One said he was Hispanic and another said he was white; one said he had
an Oklahoma drawl and another said he spoke in a slight Hispanic accent.

None of them mentioned seeing tattoos, which cover Peralez’s forearm and
torso, Griffin said.

They described their attacker’s scars, but Griffin said their
descriptions didn’t match Peralez’s scars. And each attack was
different, from the time of day it occurred to the weapon that was used,
he said.

“Finally, there’s the DNA,” said Griffin, who speculated that the
Colorado Bureau of

Investigation may have made a mistake, that contamination of the DNA
evidence can occur and that “DNA is not the end-all, be-all of evidence.
It has its problems.”

In his rebuttal, prosecutor John Newsome called DNA “The most reliable
evidence we have today.”

Also, no proof exists that the samples were contaminated or that
mistakes were made in the collection or processing.

The DNA evidence combined with last week’s testimony by the victims
proves Peralez was the attacker, he said. Each woman described the
rapist as having textured gloves, a ski mask with holes for the eyes and
mouth and a small black flashlight — all items found in Peralez’s
possession.

“To suggest these cases aren’t similar is insulting,” Newsome said.

“All attacks involved tremendous violence. He slit (one victim’s)
throat. He beat (another victim) within an inch of her life with the
palm of his hand.”

The attacker made two of his victims clean themselves while he watched,
and used a household cleaning solution to cleanse another.
Each woman was older than 50 and lived alone, and each time the attacker
broke in from the rear of the house, Newsome said.

“It was only because he was shot and ran from her house, bleeding, that
(Zamarripa) wasn’t a rape victim,” he said.

Fair Use:

http://www.robertwaters.net