State of Iowa v. Wilmer Ernesto Garcia Espinal

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0615
Filed June 18, 2025

STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

WILMER ERNESTO GARCIA ESPINAL,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County, Elizabeth Dupuich,

Judge.

A criminal defendant appeals his convictions for two counts of sexual abuse

in the second degree. AFFIRMED.

William Monroe, Burlington, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Joseph D. Ferrentino, Assistant

Attorney General, for appellee.

Considered without oral argument by Schumacher, P.J., Buller, J., and

Bower, S.J.*

*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2025).
2

BULLER, Judge.

Wilmer Garcia Espinal appeals his convictions for two counts of sexual

abuse in the second degree, asserting the district court erred in admitting

statements he claims were inadmissible hearsay. We affirm, finding two of the

challenged statements were not hearsay and the third was covered by an

exception or was cumulative and harmless.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings1

In elementary school, M.L. (born 2007) split time between her mom’s and

dad’s residences, leaving for school every morning from her dad’s trailer. In 2015,

Garcia Espinal—born 2001, a cousin of M.L.’s half-brother—was at the trailer

virtually every morning to go to school with another of M.L.’s siblings.

At first, Garcia Espinal would “just sit in the living room, maybe on the couch”

and make small talk with M.L. He soon started “play[ing] games” by holding and

touching M.L., and that eventually escalated to him taking her to one of the trailer’s

bedrooms. Once in the bedroom, he told her “don’t say anything” or “be quiet” and

sexually assaulted her by penetrating her vagina with his penis. M.L. cried while

remembering and describing what happened. She distinctly remembered one

incident at the trailer, but she also testified that Garcia Espinal raped her by

performing the same sex acts on more than one occasion—she just remembered

one time more clearly.

1 The facts and argument sections of Garcia Espinal’s brief block-quote “facts” from

the probable-cause statement in the complaint filed by police to obtain an arrest
warrant. This is improper given his arguments on appeal, which concern trial error.
And it is unhelpful to our review.
3

Around 2017, M.L.’s sister discovered that Garcia Espinal had been

messaging M.L. on Snapchat. M.L.’s dad eventually saw the messages, which

indicated they were from Garcia Espinal. In them, Garcia Espinal asked M.L. if

she would be his “girlfriend” and called her “Mami.” M.L.’s dad testified that, in

their culture, “The word ‘Mami’ can have a lot of different meanings. But when you

use that word and you ask for somebody to be your girlfriend, you’re using that

word to treat them with affection and love.” When M.L.’s dad confronted Garcia

Espinal about the messages, Garcia Espinal initially denied sending them but then

later apologized. M.L.’s dad told Garcia Espinal he was no longer welcome in the

home.

M.L. did not see Garcia Espinal around much until a birthday party that July,

held at M.L.’s dad’s new home. At this party, Garcia Espinal led M.L. to a bedroom,

closed the door, and once again put his penis in her vagina. M.L. remembered

hearing “happy birthday” music coming from elsewhere in the house while Garcia

Espinal raped her. And a photo admitted at trial confirmed that a birthday party

attended by both M.L. and Garcia Espinal took place at M.L.’s dad’s house in

July 2017.

In February 2023, M.L.’s dad was reviewing M.L.’s phone and grew

concerned at messages between M.L. and her best friend. When her dad asked

about the messages, M.L. started crying about Garcia Espinal and disclosed that

he sexually abused her. M.L.’s dad took her to her mom’s house, where M.L.

tearfully disclosed the abuse a second time. M.L.’s parents took her to see a

pediatrician, who was a mandatory reporter and contacted the police.
4

Testifying at trial, now age sixteen, M.L. explained that she didn’t tell anyone

about the abuse in elementary school because she “just pretended it didn’t

happen” since she “didn’t understand why” Garcia Espinal abused her. She also

didn’t disclose the sexual abuse when her dad asked about the messages in 2017

because she was “scared.” She independently recalled that Garcia Espinal

messaged asking her to be his “girlfriend” and she confirmed that her sister and

dad saw those messages around 2017. And she testified regarding the 2023

messages to her friend, explaining that she messaged her friend that she was

“upset” she never told her mom about Garcia Espinal raping her.

Police were only able to obtain a few Snapchat messages between Garcia

Espinal and M.L. from August 2017 because that application does not store

messages unless the users independently save them and M.L. had blocked Garcia

Espinal long before the investigation. Officers were able to download a Snapchat

photo from M.L.’s phone that depicted Garcia Espinal at a much younger age than

he was in 2023, and the metadata for that photo indicated it was stored on M.L.’s

phone on July 29, 2017—close to the date of the birthday party where Garcia

Espinal raped her.

A detective interviewed Garcia Espinal at his home, where he admitted to

knowing M.L., messaging her, and calling her “Mami.” But, as summarized by the

detective, Garcia Espinal said “he calls everybody ‘Mami.’ He calls other people

‘Papi’ even though he’s not gay.” Garcia Espinal confirmed that in the past he was

often in M.L.’s dad’s trailer in the morning, and that M.L.’s dad confronted him

about the messages. He denied being in the house at the birthday party (despite

a photo of him there) and denied sexually abusing M.L.
5

The jury found Garcia Espinal guilty of two counts of sexual abuse in the

second degree, class “B” felonies in violation of Iowa Code sections 709.1 and

709.3(1)(b) (2015), and acquitted him on a third count. The district court sentenced

Garcia Espinal to consecutive twenty-five-year prison terms, with no mandatory

minimum owing to his age at the time of the offense. See Iowa Code § 901.5(14)

(2024). He appeals.

II. Standard of Review

“Although we generally review a court’s decision to admit or exclude

evidence for an abuse of discretion, we review a hearsay claim for correction of

errors at law.” State v. Neitzel, 801 N.W.2d 612, 621 (Iowa Ct. App. 2011).

III. Discussion

Garcia Espinal challenges three instances in which he believes the district

court improperly admitted hearsay over his objection at trial. We consider each.

The first objection came during M.L.’s dad’s testimony, when he was asked

about who sent M.L. messages and what in the messages concerned him. The

State on appeal suggests we should find these were statements of identification or

otherwise not offered for the truth of the matter asserted. But there is a much

simpler answer, as urged by the county attorney below: these statements were

sent by Garcia Espinal—the defendant—and are by definition not hearsay. See

Iowa R. Evid. 5.801(d)(2)(A) (statements of a party opponent).

The second objection concerned M.L.’s dad testifying that he was

concerned about some messages M.L. sent her friend. But the content of those

messages was not admitted at trial through M.L.’s dad, so there was no hearsay

for the district court to exclude. See Iowa R. Evid. 5.801.
6

The third objection came during M.L.’s testimony, when she described the

content of the message she sent her friend. The only statement admitted came in

this exchange:

Q. [M.L.], can you tell us, generally, in those messages, did
you have a discussion about Wilmer Ernesto Garcia Espinal? A. I
told my friend that I was upset that I had never told my mom what
had happened.
Q. And when you say “what had happened,” what are you
referring to? A. When he sexually assaulted me when I was younger.

The State on appeal suggests no hearsay was admitted in this exchange, but we

disagree. M.L.’s answers were both hearsay. But they fall within at least one

exception, as she explained that the statements were prompted by her being

“upset” about not telling her mother and related to that topic. This satisfies the

excited-utterance exception. See Iowa R. Evid. 5.803(2). And even if it didn’t

satisfy an exception, this statement was entirely cumulative to M.L.’s trial testimony

and her separate disclosures to her mom and her dad (both of which were admitted

without objection), which renders admission of this testimony harmless. See State

v. Hildreth, 582 N.W.2d 167, 170 (Iowa 1998) (“[W]e will not find prejudice if the

admitted hearsay is merely cumulative.”).

AFFIRMED.