Prosecutor says defendant raped her outside Mahoning court when she was 11 | News, Sports, Jobs

Staff photos / Ed Runyan … Sergio Gonzalez III, right, watches testimony in his rape trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Tuesday. At left is his attorney, Aaron Meikle.

YOUNGSTOWN – The young woman who accuses Sergio F. Gonzalez III of raping her multiple times in late 2017 and early 2018 when she was 11 years old took the witness stand Tuesday, the first day of Gonzalez’s rape trial, and described the details of the two rapes Gonzalez is accused of.

She also described the circumstances that brought her into contact with González when he was 17, and explained in detail why she waited two years – when she was 13 – to tell a counselor at her school in the city’s school district about the rapes.

She testified for over an hour and was questioned by Kevin Day, assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, and Aaron Meikle, Gonzalez’s defense attorney. The two school counselors she had confided in about the rapes also testified.

The trial continues today.

Gonzalez, 23, is charged with two counts of rape, which carry a life sentence if convicted. Prosecutors allege that he forced the girl to perform sexual acts – on at least one occasion he gave her marijuana beforehand and on at least one occasion he threatened to report her for marijuana use if she told anyone about the sexual encounters.

She testified that she engaged in sexual acts with Gonzalez at least five times at two homes in the city, but most of her testimony related to the two cases in which Gonzalez was charged.

Day told the jury in Judge John Durkin’s courtroom that the two crimes named in the indictment against González occurred late on December 31, 2017, or early on January 1, 2018, and again sometime in the early months of 2018.

The young woman said she was 11 years old and it was after midnight on New Year’s Eve or early New Year’s Day. She was sleeping in the bedroom of a house she sometimes visited when Gonzalez came into her room and woke her up. She knew him and nothing had ever happened between them, she said.

He said he wanted to show her something in another room. She went there and he asked her if she wanted to smoke marijuana.

She knew what it was but wasn’t sure what effect it would have. He blew the smoke in her face and then asked her to play a parlor game, she testified.

Eventually, he asked her to sit on his lap. “He just became very insistent that I get closer to him,” she said. He asked for sex, and she said no. “He wouldn’t let up,” she said. Then he “forced” me to perform a sexual act, she said. Two other children were sleeping in the room at the time, she said.

When she visited the house a second time several months later and used the upstairs restroom, Gonzalez asked her to come to his room, which she did. He again asked her for sex, but she said she didn’t want to do that again. “He said he would tell people I smoke and that this would be the last time,” she said.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to do this. You have a girlfriend, why don’t you ask her?'” she testified. Then the second encounter happened, she said.

Two years later, she had a counseling session with Tamara LeFlore, a Youngstown City Schools red zone counselor with whom she had been talking for several weeks. She told her about the incidents with Gonzalez, she said.

“She told me things about her past and I told myself things about my past. I just felt really comfortable that day and worried about someone else,” she said. “I felt like it was time to finally say something.”

She said she didn’t say anything earlier because “I was ashamed.”

Meikle questioned the girl for more than half an hour, asking her to recount the details of the two alleged rapes. This time he asked several times if she had previously explained it differently in another courtroom. For example, Meikle asked her to indicate the time she first saw the marijuana and how it was packaged. Later, he asked her to identify the exact part of the room they were in when various parts of the encounter took place.

She said she didn’t know exactly what type of pants Gonzalez was wearing, but they had an elastic waistband. Meikle asked if the young woman told LeFlore the name of the game they were playing when sex first occurred. “I don’t think I told her at the time I first told her about it,” she said.

“Have you told anyone?” asked Meikle.

“I told you,” she said of lawyers.

“So today you’re telling us about it for the first time?” asked Meikle.

“And I told Kevin,” she said of Day.

She said Gonzalez did not threaten her the first time. The second time, he threatened her, she said. She went upstairs to use the bathroom and it was still light.

“I could still see the sun shining through the window,” she said.

When Meikle asked her if she remembered telling a staff member at the Children’s Advocacy Center at Akron Children’s Hospital that Gonzalez had threatened her the first time, she said, “I don’t remember.”

LeFlore was the first witness in the trial. She testified that she began working with the girl who disclosed the rapes several weeks before the disclosure because the girl had shown signs of antisocial behavior and was “really quiet.”

However, during one of their sessions, the girl asked LeFlore “out of the blue” if she could have lunch with LeFlore and then “poured out” the information about the alleged rapes. At this point, protocol dictates contacting other school officials and the girl’s mother. This led to other Child Protective Services officials being contacted and the girl telling her mother about the allegations.

The girl cried most of the time and was embarrassed to talk about it, especially with her mother, who supported her, LeFlore said.

In his opening statement to the jury, Day said the investigation into the girl’s allegations revealed that Gonzalez told an investigator the girl asked “me” for sex, “but I said no.” Day said by the end of the trial it will be clear “how ridiculous that claim is.”

Day said most of the evidence comes from witnesses, and since the girl did not reveal the rapes until two years later, there is no physical evidence.

In her opening statements, Meikle said there would also be no digital evidence – no cellphone conversations or people who could testify that the alleged victim told anyone about the allegations.

He also told jurors that it was important to pay attention to the details – “dates, times, timelines, people, places, things.” He added: “The story doesn’t add up. The facts don’t make sense.”

Do you have an interesting story? Contact Ed Runyan by email at [email protected]. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @TribToday.

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