Victim and other witnesses share painful testimony in rape case involving a former Pima County Sheriff’s employee

This article contains graphic descriptions and testimony of an alleged sexual assault

Five hours of emotional testimony marked the first day witnesses were called to the stand in the sexual assault case against former Pima County Sergeant Ricardo Garcia.

Garcia is accused of sexually assaulting another deputy in his School Resource Officer unit at a Christmas party held at his house in December 2022.

Christopher Aquino, an attendee of the party and now a Sergeant in the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, testified on the second day of the trial about the events of the night of Dec. 17, into the early hours of Dec. 18

Aquino was one of the last attendees at the party besides the victim, Garcia, and Garcia’s girlfriend who Aquino said was asleep in another room before midnight. The victim also took the stand on Dec. 3, but AZPM is choosing to not publish her name to protect her anonymity.

Testimony also relied heavily on Ring Camera footage positioned at Garcia’s front door. Video showed that earlier in the night, the victim and Garcia were alone outside, and he repeatedly placed his hands on her. At one point the two kissed, but shortly after Aquino opened the door and walked them back inside.

Aquino testified that everyone at the party was drinking alcohol. The defense focused on Aquino’s own consumption of alcohol and his recollection of events in their questioning. Aquino said he had drinks earlier in the evening but slowed down as the party went on.

The prosecution asked him to rate the victim’s level of intoxication on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being sober, and 10 being “dead weight.” Aquino said at one point, the victim tried to kiss him. Shortly after that, he said she was at a “9 or a 10,” and unable to walk at all.

“I had to physically hold her up,” he said. “My game plan was I was going to have my wife come pick us up, drive her home, and then be taken home.”

Garcia and Aquino then carried the victim to a spare bedroom. Aquino said he left and returned with a glass of water, and left the room again to call his wife.

He found the door locked when he returned and used a plastic knife to unlock the door and enter.

Aquino found Garcia in the room with the unresponsive deputy and the door locked three separate times. Each time, he unlocked the door with the plastic knife. He said he repeatedly told Garcia “She’s done,” and saw he left the room. Between checking on the victim, he made multiple calls to his wife, who was 20-30 minutes away, and said he was asking her to hurry.

“The times I went back to check on [redacted] is when I found the doors locked. So those are, it was room, phone, room, phone, every time I went back to check on [redacted] was when the door was locked,” he said.

The victim was in various states of undress each time, and Aquino said she had no reaction to him entering the room. The second time Aquino entered, he said he found Garcia naked from the waist down with the victim’s head in his lap. The third time, Aquino said Garcia was standing over her and her underwear was around her knees.

At one point, Aquino started recording video on his phone, which he put in his jacket pocket,, because he knew the situation “was escalating.” The video was played for the jury. At one point, Garcia is heard telling Aquino to “get the f*** out of my [inaudible].”

The victim testified that she had no memory of the events Aquino talked about. She said she vaguely remembered “very small parts” of being driven home by a responding deputy. Ring Camera footage showed this was about 4 am.

The victim said Garcia called her in the late morning on Dec. 18 to tell her they had sex.

“I remember saying that I didn’t remember that. At which point he told me not to say that. He told me not to say that multiple times,” she said.

The victim said she felt pain and soreness the next morning, and also lots of shame at the prospect of coming forward to her colleagues in the sheriff’s department. She said she changed her story and denied knowledge of certain events due to the embarrassment she felt.

The defense asked the victim if she felt safe at the party. She said she did, because she had known Garcia since 2007 in the Corrections Academy, and that she was “amongst other deputies and coworkers.”

The victim’s testimony will resume on Dec. 4.

The case caught the attention of the Pima County Board of Supervisors, some of whom questioned how Sheriff Nanos handled the case.

An investigation by the Arizona Attorney General into how the case was handled found that Sheriff Nanos could have violated four areas of department policy in the case.

Multiple people involved in the case have said they feared retribution within the department because of their roles in the case.