by Antoinnette Borbon
Today, Public Defender Lisa Lance filed a motion in regard to the sentencing phase of her client, Thomas Vukodinovich. Mr. Vukodinovich was convicted of several dozen counts of sexual misconduct with a disabled woman.
Jurors held him accountable for becoming involved with a mentally-handicapped woman. Mr. Vukodinovich was the bus driver in charge of transporting disabled individuals to work.
According to the prosecution, he used this bus to drive the alleged victim to a number of secluded locations throughout Yolo and Solano County to have sexual relations with her and then warned her that, if she reported him, he would get in trouble, be arrested and lose his job.
The 57 charges are broken down into oral copulation with a mentally deficient person, sexual penetration with a foreign object with a mentally deficient person, raping a mentally deficient person, and attempted rape of an incapable person. The charged incidents occurred between 2010 and 2012, although there is some indication they actually began in 2009. The charges amount to one incident per month of the first two charges.
Deputy DA Alvina Tzang in closing arguments on Tuesday argued that the now 49-year-old victim has the mentality of a three- or four-year-old child.
The alleged victim does not speak very well and has difficulty communicating. The incidents allegedly occurred in front of a number of other people on the bus who also had difficulty communicating, and sometimes in the presence of another who would fall asleep on the bus.
Defense attorney Lisa Lance would argue that this case is about a woman’s right to her womanhood and argued that the state was telling her that she could not have consensual sexual relations, ever. She argued that, in effect, we work to get developmentally disabled people as independent and self-sufficient as possible, but then preclude them from having sex.
While Ms. Lance acknowledged that Mr. Vukodinovich’s conduct was grounds to fire him and preclude him from working again, she argued it was not criminal conduct.
The state’s case rested on the evaluations of a psychiatrist who evaluated the alleged victim back in 1978 when she was just 14 years old. There was a 45-minute reevaluation in 1991.
At that point, the prosecution, argued the alleged victim had moderate mental retardation and showed an IQ of 37. She had the mental age of three to four years.
The victim was a woman who fought hard to be treated like any normal woman. She wanted a husband, a house and all that goes along with it. She wanted to be in love.
In her defense, Ms. Lance attempted to show that the woman was able to hold a job, care for animals, groom herself, budget her money and have normal friendships.
The woman strove to have a normal life and a normal relationship and she thought she found it in Mr. Vukodinovich.
He was the bus driver for the YES program. During his testimony to police, he stated how the woman had come on to him several times and he finally gave in. During their relationship he told police how the woman wanted to get married, and even the woman herself testified to loving him. But he also stated he tried to end the relationship.
Ms. Lance talked about the fraud committed in getting her client to confess. During trial, she stated to the detective, “You call it a ruse, I call it fraud,” when the two detectives had tricked the defendant into believing they were insurance agents to get him to comply.
It was later determined through testimony how the woman had been caught in lies before and had somewhat of a history of telling tall tales once someone had made her mad. It was brought out in trial that, on a few different occasions, the disabled woman had lied about being sexually abused by other bus drivers.
Ms. Lance pulled testimony from about six different witnesses who testified during the trial, to paint a very different picture of the alleged victim as a woman who knows she is different from others, but wants to live as normal a life as possible.
Ms. Lance showed evidence that the alleged victim lies to people when she gets angry or is threatened with getting in trouble, including evidence that she has withheld information from and deceived her sister in the past.
Mr. Vukodinovich is now 74. He has never been accused of committing a crime, has great character references and good job evaluations.
Now we move to the sentencing phase of the trial.
What was the motion about?
Mr. Obvious, I did not get the info in specifics yet, but sure David will update once it is in..so sorry!
It should be soon…