Update: April 16 Trial Set for La Mesa Man in Vons Restroom Molestation Case

Updated at 10:40 a.m. Feb. 21, 2012

An East County judge has set April 16 as the trial date for Russell Charles Cilibraise III, accused in the Vons molestation case. Judge John Thompson in El Cajon Superior Court on Tuesday also set a readiness conference for March 28—when lawyers for both sides can tell whether they are on track for the La Mesan’s trial in mid-April.

Original story from Nov. 8, 2011:

A 9-year-old boy testified Tuesday morning that he had a quick peek of Russell Cilibraise sitting on a Vons restroom toilet with a toddler on his lap—the tot tugging on the La Mesa man’s “private.”

The 2-year-old—later identified in court as the suspect’s son—was “pushing and pulling” his parent’s penis with both hands while Cilibraise leaned back with his eyes “closed, almost closed” and his arms at his sides, the fourth-grader said.

After that testimony—and that of two La Mesa police detectives—Judge William McGrath ordered Russell Charles Cilibraise III to stand trial for lewd and lascivious acts with a child in the June 15 incident at the grocery story on University Avenue.

Prosecutor Claudia Grasso of the district attorney’s family protection unit, added an allegation of substantial sexual contact, which toughens the penalty if Cilibraise is found guilty.

Cilibraise, 29, faces a sentence of three to eight years in state prison, Grasso said. He has pleaded not guilty to both the original count and the allegation added Tuesday.

At Tuesday’s preliminary hearing in El Cajon Superior Court, defense attorney Domingo Quintero moved to within 10 feet of the boy, whose first name was given in court but won’t be used in this report per Patch policy.

Only three people were in the audience, including Cilibraise’s wife, said to have worked at the Wells Fargo Bank branch inside the Vons at the La Mesa Springs shopping center.

In fact, that’s how Cilibraise was identified by police.

According to police Detective Jason Sieckman, a 10-year officer, surveillance video shot near the restrooms and near the store entrance showed Cilibraise with his son in his arms.  On exiting the store, a woman later identified as his wife was seen accompanying him out.

A manager at Wells Fargo was able to identify his female employee, and that led to police Detective Sean Snow tracking down Cilibraise.

Snow called Cilibraise a day or two after the incident and left a voice-mail message asking him to visit the La Mesa police station—a minute down the street from Vons. Cilibraise complied.

“I told him I appreciated his coming down, and he didn’t have to answer questions,” testified Snow, wearing a dark suit during the nearly 2-hour hearing.

Cilibraise didn’t take the stand—and his lawyer called no witnesses—but Detective Snow suggested what might be the father’s eventual defense.

Snow recalled that when he told Cilibraise what the boy described, Cilibraise said: “He did?”

Snow said Cilibriase told him he was “there taking a poop” and noticed the interruption of the boy opening the restroom door.

Cilibraise explained his “rambunctious” son’s actions as trying to be helpful.

“He likes to wipe his father’s behind” after going to bathroom, Snow said Cilibraise told him. 

Snow said he then read Cilibraise his Miranda rights as he arrested him, but Cilibraise continued to talk, saying that his son liked to play with his [father’s] penis while they were in the shower, for example.

Cilibriase called his son “inquisitive,” Snow testified, adding that the father said he sometimes had to swat away his son’s hands from his genitals.

Snow said he recalled telling Cilibraise that his “explanation was very unusual.”

Judge McGrath agreed and found that “substantial suspicion” existed that a crime had been committed, justifying a trial. 

He set a readiness conference for Jan. 11 and a trial date of 9 a.m. Jan. 30—although deputy DA Grasso said she was starting a homicide trial Jan. 23 and suggested the trial might have to start later.

The 9-year-old testified for 40 minutes, with his dreadlocks-wearing father quietly sitting alongside him under a policy allowing emotional support.

McGrath asked the boy, whose hometown wasn’t revealed, if he played any sports.

“Boxing,” he said.

What was his favorite subject in school?

“Math,” he said.

The judge asked: “Do you know what it means to tell the truth?”

“Not to lie,” the boy quietly replied.

McGrath then explained to the boy that it was OK to say he didn’t know or he didn’t remember—but to answer all questions verbally rather than with a nod of his head or shrug, since a court recorder was transcribing his words.

The boy—from a family that included three other brothers and two sisters—said he was shopping with his older brother and two younger sisters when his older brother decided to go to the bathroom.

The men’s restroom was occupied, so the older boy went into the small women’s restroom.  The younger boy didn’t go in, he said, “cuz I’m a man.”

But after a “long time” waiting for the men’s restroom to be vacated, the 9-year-old tested the handle and found it unlocked.

But when he looked inside, the youngster said, he saw a man sitting on the toilet with a baby on his lap, facing away from the man. 

Asked how he knew the toddler was about 2, the boy testified the child was about the same size as his own sister, who had just turned 3.

The man’s legs were split apart, he said, and the tot’s hands were holding “the tip of a private” between the man’s thighs.  The boy was directed to circle the “privates” on a black-and-white anatomical drawing.

He circled the penis.

What was the little boy doing? Grasso asked the 9-year-old.

“He was just playing with it—pushing and pulling [without much strength], not knowing what he was really doing,” said the boy, who later added “tugging it up and down and side to side.”

Grasso asked: Was anything coming out?

The boy replied: Urine was coming out, “like a fountain.”

The boy testified that he didn’t close the restroom door as much as let it close on its own, and heard the man say: “Excuse me, sorry.”

Afterward, the boy told his older brother about the incident, which he said lasted about 3 seconds—demonstrating with a humorous grind of the hips, according to a police detective who saw surveillance video of the exchange.

Quintero, a short and stocky downtown San Diego lawyer in a gray suit, started his cross examination of the boy gently, asking: “How are you today?” and “Nervous?”

The boy said “yes.”

You don’t want to be here? Quintero said.

“Not really,” the boy replied.

He then moved from his table across the courtroom to one about 10 feet from the boy, quizzing him on who he told of the incident.

Cilibraise, a balding man, sat quietly at a table across from the boy, wearing a dark blue V-neck “SD Jail” over a white T-shirt, baggy pants and red flipflop sandals.

Quintero asked Detective Sieckman whether police had followed “protocol” when interviewing minor witnesses. He eventually answered “No.”

Sieckman said he had never actually seen it written down, and he didn’t take the boy to the Chadwick Center in San Diego for an interview with the trained counselors there because of the urgency in finding a potential molester who might have other victims.

He also said he wanted to make sure, via his investigation, that there wasn’t “maybe some misunderstanding.”

“I didn’t want to put someone in jail that day over a misunderstanding,” Sieckman testified.

After the hearing, Grasso noted that the protocol applies to victims of molestation, not minor witnesses, “so I don't see it being a problem. In those types of situations, the detective can act out his own discretion. The detective explained in court that, given the needs of the case, ... he needed to interview this [9-year-old] witness.”