By Aaron Burgin, The Porterville Recorder
VISALIA — A jury convicted two Porterville men Wednesday of kidnapping, assaulting and raping a woman inside a Porterville garage for two days in October.

The seven-woman, five-man panel found Robert Gracia, 35, guilty of seven felony counts, including charges of kidnapping for ransom, kidnapping for rape, four counts of forced oral copulation and rape.

They also determined that Benito “Benny” Munoz, 37, was guilty of assault with intent to rape the victim, but found him not guilty of a more serious rape charge. It took jurors three and a half hours to come to a verdict, after Tulare County Superior Court Judge Patrick J. O’Hara handed them the case shortly before noon. Both Munoz and Gracia appeared visibly upset as the clerk read the verdicts. The victim, a 24-year-old Web page designer and computer builder, was not present for the verdict.

With its decision, the jury accepted the victim’s account of the ordeal, which she said began Oct. 8 when Gracia picked her and two other women up in Tulare and concluded Oct. 10, shortly after she passed a note to a Save Mart employee in Porterville alerting the employee of her distress.

Both women, Gracia, Munoz and a man who allegedly accepted money for oral sex with the victim denied the victim’s claims. The verdict also meant the jury looked past the victim’s admitted troubled past, which included an addiction to methamphetamine and admitted use of drugs throughout the ordeal, prosecutors said.

“When someone testifies that they were kidnapped and raped and assaulted repeatedly, it is compelling and heart wrenching,” Tulare County Assistant District Attorney Don Gallian said. “The jury’s verdict reflects this.” “At some point, I think the jury realized that regardless of someone’s past, no one should be subject to sexual assault,” prosecutor Onu Omordia said.

During closing arguments, Omordia implored the jury to look past the victim’s faults and look at her story and the evidence that corroborated it.

Earlier, Munoz’s attorney, Sylvia Hanna, and Gracia’s attorney, Stephen Girardot, hammered away at what they said were inconsistencies in the victim’s story, including the fact that she never tried to run away on several occasions, and that the physical evidence did not fit her claims. Girardot in his closing arguments referred to the victim as a “meth freak.”

Omordia, during her rebuttal, said each sexual assault victim reacts differently to the crimes committed against them. Whereas there was no evidence of physical restraint, Omordia said Gracia, and to a lesser extent Munoz, held her psychologically hostage. “There is no cookie cutter form for an assault victim,” Omordia said. “Counsel would have you believe that a victim is not a victim unless she is beaten with torn clothing, and that isn’t the case.”

Jurors for six days heard a number of people’s accounts of the incident, including the victim and the two women also involved in the ordeal. One of the women, Samantha Stuart, was initially charged in connection to the crime, but charges were dropped at a Dec. 20 preliminary hearing.

The victim testified that Gracia picked her and the women up at a shelter in Tulare after he said they would “party,” or use methamphetamine, at a hotel in the city. However, Gracia drove them to Porterville, where she said she was initially hog-tied with her on shoelaces, and her breast was fondled by Gracia. Later, she testified that Gracia forced her to orally copulate him on two occasions, then “pimped her out” to another man for more methamphetamine and money.

Then, she said, Gracia forced her to have sex with Munoz in Munoz’s home. The victim testified she was held against her will to hack into people’s bank accounts and transfer money to Gracia to satisfy a debt that Stuart owed him. When Gracia took her and Stuart to Save Mart to make a phone call, she wrote a note to a cashier that read, “Being held by Nortenos on Wisconsin,” and told the cashier to “take this seriously.”

Gracia now faces a maximum 150-years-to-life prison sentence because he has four prior strike offenses stemming from a 1994 attempted burglary conviction, Gallian said. If ever convicted of a crime again, he would have 11 strikes on his record. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 10.

“All kinds of things can happen,” Girardot said about Gracia’s sentence. “We just have to wait for the probation department report. But it will be a long time.”

Munoz, however, faces a maximum six-year prison sentence, which could be doubled if O’Hara rules that a 1997 spousal abuse conviction is a strike offense. O’Hara will determine this at a hearing Thursday. An emotional Hanna said she would file a notice of appeal for her client.

“What is difficult is that you get the feeling that what the jury did was split the baby,” Hanna said. “I think he (Munoz) is shocked, confused, like me.”

Contact Aaron Burgin at 784-5000, Ext. 1046, or aburgin@portervillerecorder.com.