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Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Kristin DeMarco told jurors that Alexis Sanchez-Medina was identified by each of the victims as her attacker.
However, defense attorney Gail Hargrove said police got the wrong man, and that her client’s appearance now is very different from last year.
The assaults occurred in July and August of 2012, raising public concerns throughout the area before police working around-the-clock made an arrest.
From the Interrogation video (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
Authorities at the time said the assailant knocked down his victims and then attempted to sexually assault them, in what they said was an escalating pattern. Two women were groped and another smacked on the rear as they fought off their assailant, but eventually a Dumont woman was sexually assaulted, they said.
Sanchez-Medina, a Honduran immigrant who authorities said is in the U.S. illegally, is being tried on six counts of sexual assault and criminal sexual contact. He remains held on $400,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, with a federal detainer for after the case is resolved.
Sanchez-Medina can be heard on the video saying he knocked one woman down “by accident, and then [ran] away,” but he denied any involvement in the Aug. 10 Dumont sexual assault.
He also asked the prosecutor’s investigator: “Why did they grab me? They haven’t told me anything.”
The investigator explained that although Sanchez-Medina switches back and forth from English to Spanish, they wanted to wait for a Spanish-speaking investigator so they could be sure that communications were clear.
Two Spanish interpreters have been on hand for the trial, as Sanchez-Medina monitors the proceedings through headphones.
The investigator also tells Sanchez-Medina on the video that some bad things happened to some women, but that “no one is hurt and no one is dead.”
One of the victims is scheduled to testify tomorrow morning, after which jurors are to watch the rest of the interoggation video, which lasts nearly three hours in total.
STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter
Alexis-Sanchez Medina (left), with public defender Gail Hargrove, watch the interoggation video (STORY / PHOTOS: Mary K. Miraglia, CLIFFVIEW PILOT Courthouse Reporter)
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