ATTORNEY Brien Sers Nicholas has subpoenaed two Federal Bureau of Investigation lab technicians to testify in a Daubert hearing on June 29 at 10 a.m. in the government’s case against Kenneth Thomas Blas Kaipat who was accused of raping a 24-year-old woman on June 2, 2019.
A Daubert hearing is a type of evidentiary hearing to determine the admissibility of scientific or expert testimony.
Kaipat was charged with three counts of sexual assault in the first degree, two counts of sexual assault in the second degree, aggravated assault and battery, assault with a dangerous weapon, strangulation, and burglary.
Kaipat, represented by Nicholas, has asked the court for an order allowing “the introduction and the subsequent admission [by virtual means] of scientific and testimonial evidence from Ms. Ashley M. Baloga, an FBI Trace Evidence Examiner, and also from Ms. Stacy A. Furman, an FBI Latent Print Examiner, as defense experts at the trial of this case.”
“Ms. Baloga was the FBI Examiner who conducted examinations for trace evidence of evidence collected by plaintiff in this case and sent over to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Va., for testing. Likewise, Ms. Furman is also an FBI Examiner who conducted examinations for latent prints of the same evidence that plaintiff collected in this case and sent to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Va., for testing as well,” said Nicholas.
The testimony of Baloga as to “trace evidence” and Furman as to “latent prints” will assist the jury in this case in determining whether the government is prosecuting the right person, Nicholas added.
“And, like Ms. Jaclyn Garfinkle’s testimony for the government regarding her DNA evidence in this case, the testimonies of both Ms. Baloga and Ms. Furman…will prove most reliable and relevant to the issue of whether the government is wrongfully prosecuting the defendant in this case,” the defense attorney stated.
Nicholas requested the court to allow the defendant’s expert witnesses to give their scientific and testimonial evidence virtually at Kaipat’s jury trial upon being qualified as experts in this case.
Kaipat’s jury trial is scheduled for Aug. 7, 2023.
In December 2022, the local Supreme Court reversed the decision of Associate Judge Wesley Bogdan to grant the motion to suppress the second DNA sample. This put the case back to trial track.
Background
According to the initial affidavit of probable cause in support of the issuance of an arrest warrant against Kaipat (who was then 17 years old), police officers were dispatched to a home in San Vicente on June 2, 2019.
On arrival, officers observed a woman walking from the house, “her face was covered in blood that ran down to her chest, and both her eyes were heavily bruised and swollen.”
The officers also noted that her voice was shaking and she could barely speak. Medics arrived and transported her to the hospital. She was identified as the defendant’s cousin.
Police talked to Kaipat who was reportedly crying and trembling with “scratch marks on the right side of his face.”
Police learned that Kaipat was dropped by his parents at his uncle’s house with another cousin and two of his brothers to wait for their confirmation and pre-confirmation classes at 2:30 p.m.
Kaipat’s brothers left the house for their pre-confirmation classes that began at 3 p.m.
Kaipat said he and his male cousin stayed back as their pre-confirmation classes would start at 3:30 p.m.
Later Kaipat said his cousin left on his own. He told police that he waited by the porch of the house and decided to walk to a store, Ming Yang Market, to buy a drink.
Kaipat said as he was walking, something hard hit him on the upper right side of his head, causing him to fall on the ground.
As he was on the ground, Kaipat said he felt somebody hold his hand and heard a male voice say, “Don’t make me see you again.”
He told police that the man was holding something black in his hand and that he could not identify the man because his face was covered. Kaipat said his vision was blurry.
He told police that the man was headed to his uncle’s house so he went to the San Vicente Church where he called police.
The victim, for her part, told police that she was taking an afternoon nap when she heard a male voice call her nickname, which only close family members knew.
She said she got up and looked around the house but did not see anyone.
After going back to sleep, she was woken up as she was being strangled from behind. She said she struggled with the person and used her hands and fingernails to try and scratch anything she could on the suspect’s body and face. She said she fell to the floor with the person and she could not breathe as she was still being choked.
She said she could not identify the perpetrator as his face was covered with clothing, but noticed the attacker’s complexion was brown.
At that point she told police that she thought she was going to die and pretended to be unconscious on the floor.
She said she heard the suspect ripped her panties and that she felt that she was being choked again when she blacked out.
She said when she woke up, she was on a bed in “short pants.”
Medical records indicated that the victim sustained a four-centimeter laceration over her left eyebrow, a large scalp hematoma, bruising to her eyes, one missing tooth and one loose tooth, superficial laceration of her tongue and upper lip, a closed fracture of the mandible and concussion.
She also sustained multiple abrasions at the back of her head, bruising to both arms, laceration to her ear, and several bruises on the front of both legs.
A sexual assault examination was performed on the victim on the same day of the incident and evidence obtained from the examination was sent to the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
According to a physician assistant, Kaipat suffered injuries to the right side of his face, his right triceps and back. The PA also told police that the linear lining on Kaipat was consistent with fingernail scratches. The PA said the injuries Kaipat sustained were contrary to what he described as being struck by a hard object.
Police said the clothes that Kaipat wore appeared to have red stains, so they were taken by the Department of Public Safety’s crime scene technicians.
Crime scene technicians also obtained swabs of Kaipat’s fingernails on both hands, buccal swabs of left and right inner cheek, and saliva samples. These materials were also sent to the FBI laboratory.
On June 2, 2020, the FBI laboratory DNA results indicated a “very strong support for inclusion of Kaipat.”
Kaipat was then taken to juvenile custody pursuant to a Rule 4 warrant on June 9, 2020, and bail was set at $250,000.
He was released on April 15, 2021, after five bail hearings, based on special consideration given to juveniles.
On May 13, 2021, the juvenile court issued an order waiving its juvenile jurisdiction.
