Man Convicted Of 1999 Rape Appeals SentenceA California man convicted in 2022 of a 1999 rape and kidnapping is appealing his sentence with the Indiana Court of Appeals.
During a three-day jury trial in September, Rodriguez Samandes Todd, 53, La Mesa, Calif., was found guilty of rape and kidnapping, both Class A felonies.
Todd was sentenced in Kosciusko Superior Court I to 40 years in the Indiana Department of Correction on each charge, with both counts to run consecutively, for a total of 80 years.
On Nov. 23, 1999, a woman from Logansport said she was kidnapped by a black man with fake facial hair at a gas station in Warsaw, in the area of Center and Detroit streets.
During her testimony at trial, the woman said she pulled over at the gas station to check her vehicle's transmission fluid when Todd approached her with a knife and forced her into her vehicle.
Todd then took the woman to a wooded area and raped her twice. The woman drove away about an hour later after realizing Todd was no longer around. A sexual assault kit was completed on the woman.
The case remained cold until April 2019, when Indiana State Police were notified that a Combined DNA Index System search resulted in a computer match between Todd and a portion of the DNA profile entered earlier in the investigation.
Todd, who resided in California in 2019, was interviewed by a San Diego Police detective. During the interview, Todd said he lived in South Bend in 1999 and had several "one-night stands" during that time but couldn't remember any names.
The DNA profile collected in the investigation was at least 1 trillion times more likely if it originated from the woman and Todd than if it originated from the woman and an unknown person.
The appeal asks the Court of Appeals to reverse and remand with instructions Kosciusko County Superior I to vacate his convictions. In the alternative, the appeal asks the court to reverse the Kosciusko County Superior I’s imposition of consecutive sentences or excise its authority to reduce Todd’s sentences.
According to the appeal, at the pretrial conference on Nov. 15, 2021, Todd filed a motion to continue the conference and the trial court reset the pretrial conference for Nov. 29, 2021. At the Nov. 29, 221, pretrial conference, Todd requested a trial date of March 16, 2022. The trial court instead set a final pretrial conference for May 16, 2022, with the three-day jury trial to begin on June 14, 2022.
On Feb. 22, 2022, the state filed a motion to compel Todd to comply with collection of a DNA sample. The motion to compel was not granted and on April 12, 2022, the state filed another motion to compel requesting the final pretrial conference be advanced from May 16, 2022, to April 18, 2022. That motion was granted.
On July 31, 2022, Todd filed a petition for discharge and dismissal. The trial court held a hearing and denied the petition. The court also granted the state’s motion to continue, resetting the trial to begin Sept. 13, 2022, where Todd was found guilty.
Todd was sentenced Oct. 19, 2022.
According to the appeal, the trial court erred in denying Todd’s petition to discharge and dismiss the case because the delay between Nov. 15, 2021, and Nov. 29, 2021, were not attributable to the defendant where he only acquiesced to the delay in setting a trial date.
The appeal said Todd was entitled to discharge pursuant to Criminal Rule 4 because the state failed to bring him to trial within one year of the date on which the charges against him were filed.
Todd said he only acquiesced to the trial court’s decision to not set a trial date at the Nov. 29, 2021, hearing. At the hearing on the motion to dismiss, the state said Todd proposed to delay in setting the trial. Instead on the Nov. 29, 2021, hearing, Todd requested the trial court set a jury trial for “any date after May 16.” The state argued if the trial court set a trial date at that time, it would be “setting a trial date without being sure if we’re trying it or not.”
The appeal said the exchange no way states Todd requested a day in setting the trial date.
It also said the court erred when it sentenced Todd to 40 years for rape and 40 years for kidnapping with the two sentences to be served consecutively. The 80-year sentence is “inappropriate in light of the nature of the offense and the character of the offender,” the appeal said.
At the time of the crime, the sentencing range for a Class A felony was 20 to 50 years with an advisory sentence of 30 years. The trial court ordered Todd to serve the above-advisory sentence of 40 years for each Class A felony then ordered the two sentences be served consecutively.
The appeal said the nature of the offense didn’t merit an above-advisory sentence.
It also said Todd’s character as an offender also didn’t justify the elevated sentence as 20 years had passed since the kidnapping and rape occurred. He submitted nine letters that spoke to his character at the time of sentencing. While the trial court found Todd’s criminal history indicated the offense might occur again, the two convictions Todd had accrued were of a fundamentally different character than the rape and kidnapping case.
At sentencing, Kosciusko County Superior Court I Judge Karin McGrath found Todd’s criminal history, which involved domestic battery and reckless driving convictions, as a mitigating factor. The appeal said Todd has a Level 6 felony for driving while intoxicated.
The appeal said the state presented no evidence of any other allegations of rape or kidnapping against Todd.
