COURT NEWS

By DEBRA HAIGHT

BCR Correspondent

Rulings were handed down recently in two high profile cases. Berrien County Trial Judge Charles LaSata denied a motion for a new trial in a 2009 Niles murder case, while the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the 2017 sentence of a Benton Township man who locked up and assaulted a woman.

Judge LaSata denied a motion by the attorneys for Jonathan Castillo for a new trial after an evidentiary hearing was held last July on the matter.

Castillo, now 39, was convicted in 2009 of first-degree murder in the stabbing

death of Michael Evans of Dowagiac. Evans was dating the mother of Castillo’s three children and was stabbed to death outside Castillo’s family’s Maple Street home in Niles after an altercation on Feb. 2, 2009.

Last July’s hearing featured testimony from Castillo’s brother-in-law, Osvaldo Villafuerte. Villafuerte claimed he was there that day and saw Evans pull out a knife as Evans and Castillo struggled. Castillo has always claimed self defense.

Villafuerte was not married to Castillo’s sister, Brenda Macedo, at the time but said he was at the home. Macedo, her son and Castillo fled the scene after the stabbing and were arrested a day later in Elkhart. Villafuerte later married Macedo but did not tell her or Castillo about what he allegedly saw until late 2015.

Judge LaSata said last July that he found Villafuerte’s testimony to be “lacking in credibility.” In his ruling in mid-May, he reiterated that point. “During the evidentiary hearing, this Court determined that Mr. Villafuerte was one of the least credible witnesses this Court has ever encountered,” he wrote.

LaSata questioned why Villafuerte did not say anything until years later after Castillo had been tried and convicted of murder. “This Court finds it illogical that Mr. Villafuerte would keep silent for years while his wife’s brother is imprisoned,” he wrote.

LaSata noted that while Villafuerte’s testimony was new evidence not available at the time of the original trial, his statements were not consistent with all the other evidence in the case and would not have resulted in a different result in a new trial.

The judge also denied Castillo’s claim that he had ineffective assistance of counsel at both the trial and appellate levels. He claimed his trial attorney was ineffective in not discovering Villafuerte’s testimony at the time of the trial and that his appellate counsel was ineffective in not claiming that his trial attorney was ineffective.

In the other case, the Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court had not erred in sentencing William Scholtes and denied his motion for a new trial.

Scholtes, now 51, had been found guilty by a Berrien County Trial Court jury and was sentenced in November, 2017 to prison terms of 43 to 180 months for unlawful imprisonment. His victim testified in court that he locked her in a

room for several hours, severely beat her, held a knife to her head and threatened her with a gun.

In his appeal, Scholtes claimed that the trial court judge erred in not allowing him to amend the witness list before the trial in order to call his uncle as an alibi witness. He also claimed that the evidence presented at trial did not support his conviction.

The Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court did not err in not allowing the witness to testify and noted that Scholtes admitted his addition of his uncle to the witness list was not timely. The Court of Appeals noted that allowing the witness to testify would have prejudiced the prosecution and that Scholtes himself testified about his alleged alibi.

“Moreover, defendant’s reason for the delayed disclosure was patently unpersuasive,” the Court of Appeals wrote, “Put simply, defendant had ample time to reveal his alibi defense that involved his uncle and he

did not do so.”

“Further, the jury was presented with abundant evidence of defendant’s guilt and was apprised of the alibi defense through defendant’s trial testimony. Therefore, we are satisfied that the trial court’s decision to exclude White’s testimony did not fall “outside the range of reasonable and principled outcomes.”

The Court of Appeals ruling also outlined the sufficiency of the evidence presented in the trial and found that there was ample evidence presented that would lead the jury to convict him. “In sum, there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant of unlawful imprisonment …,” the Court of Appeals wrote.