Man being held on rape charge

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — An 18-year-old Grants man will have a preliminary examination in Cibola County Magistrate Court on Jan. 16 on a charge of 2nd-degree criminal sexual penetration of a girl between 13 and 16 years old.

Phillip L. Rivera of 1011 Seville Loop also was charged at his first appearance Tuesday with 4th-degree felony custodial interference and 4th-degree felony contributing to the delinquency of a minor when Cibola County Deputy Sheriff Freddie Espinoza arrested him and booked him on Dec. 31 into the Cibola County Detention Center where he remained Tuesday on a $20,000 secured bond.

In his court documents, the deputy indicated the custodial interference charge stemmed from not returning the 14-year-old girl to her guardians. In his incident report, the deputy said he was told she did not want to go home.

The deputy got involved when Grants Police Department Sgt. Gilbert Gonzales and Officer Jesse Nieto determined the alleged statutory rape occurred outside the city limits on Zuni Canyon Road in a travel trailer outside a larger mobile home. They were at Cibola General Hospital where the girl had been taken for a rape kit test.

The girl told the deputy she climbed out her bedroom window around 8:30 p.m. Dec. 29 to meet the defendant and he drove them to his mother's mobile home. According to the deputy's report the defendant repeatedly asked her "if she was sure that she wanted to do this and she told him, 'yes'."

She admitted to the deputy the sexual activity was consensual. "She also states that this was the first time she had sexual intercourse with Phillip, but (she) has had sexual intercourse before," the deputy added.

The couple fell asleep in the travel trailer, which his mother said they could rest in, and woke up about 30 minutes after midnight on the 30th, went back into the main home and talked with his mother for a while. The defendant then dropped her off near her grandmother's home, she told the deputy.

In talking with the girl's guardians, the deputy learned they discovered her missing about a half-hour after she had sneaked away from their home. They reported her disappearance to Grants Police Department Officer Jesse Nieto. Around 2 p.m. on Dec. 30 they picked her up at her grandmother's place, the deputy said. After being back home at their residence in the southeastern portion of the city, they took her to the hospital.

The guardians added that they had just found out that the two young people had seen each other Christmas night; so they called the defendant and told him to stay away from her and not to call her.

"They stated that Phillip stated that he would never do anything to (her) because she was jail bait," Espinoza said.

Around 6 p.m. Dec. 31, Rivera's mother brought him in for an interview at the CCSO.

He told the deputy he met with the girl only after a female friend of hers had picked her up, driving her to his residence around 9:50 p.m. Dec. 29.

The defendant told the deputy, the three of them then drove to his mother's place off Zuni Canyon Road.

"Phillip states that (she) stated that she had run away from home and did not want to return there," the deputy said. He added that the young man advised his mother of the situation and she asked several times how old the girl was. The girl said she was 16 years of age.

The defendant then described what happened in the travel trailer his mother had given them permission to use, indicating he asked the girl several times as they progressed in their sexual activity if she was sure this is what she wanted. She always replied "yes," he said.

At one point, he told the deputy, he wanted to stop as they were kissing and undressing each other, but she continued until they had sex and fell asleep.

"The next morning he dropped (her) off a block away from her grandparents residence, and she walked there by herself," the deputy concluded.

To contact reporter Jim Maniaci in Grants, telephone 285-6184 or (505) 870-7775 (cellular).