WOODLAND — A former California Highway Patrol officer being tried on domestic violence charges took the witness stand in his own defense Thursday, claiming his estranged wife inflicted her own choking injuries and their son lied about how she got them.
“I did not choke her,” Armando Ortega, 45, said of the alleged altercation in their Woodland home that left him facing three felony domestic violence charges. He said it likely was his wife who told their son to lie because “I believe she was trying to cover something up.”
Ortega’s testimony capped an unusual two-day trial during which his wife, adult son and teenage daughter all refused to testify against the defendant. When called into court Wednesday by prosecuting attorney Deanna Hays, they took the witness stand and swore to tell the truth.
But when Hays tried asking them for basic information such as their ages, where they lived and how they knew Ortega, all three gave the same reply: “I refuse to answer any questions.”
Judge Janene Beronio ordered them to answer but still they refused, even after conferring with attorneys about the consequences of their actions. So she found all three in contempt of court, ordering fines for the wife and son in lieu of jail time, and instructing the daughter to write an essay “on how this has affected you and why you chose not to testify.”
“I don’t want you to be deceived by the simplicity of the evidence,” Hays had told the seven-man, five-woman jury during opening statements earlier Wednesday, anticipating the family’s lack of cooperation. “They don’t want this proceeding. But you will hear their words.”
Defense attorney Erica Graves, meanwhile, described the prosecution’s case as “lacking.” She said the Ortega household was strained in the summer of 2014, with Armando Ortega suspecting his wife of infidelity following his recent return from a second military tour in Iraq.
“They were angry. They were both yelling and screaming at each other. It wasn’t pretty,” Graves told the jury. “But it’s not against the law to get angry at your wife for cheating on you.”
With her three key witnesses out of the picture, Hays presented the evidence in her case through other means.
Woodland Police Officer Benjamin Yen testified about the scratches and bruising he observed on the wife’s neck following her 911 call, and photographs of the injuries were displayed in court.
Hays also played Yen’s audio-recorded statement from the couple’s son, who said Ortega had angrily accused his wife of cheating on him after reading text messages on her cell phone.
“He was grabbing at her neck,” said the son, who recalled seeing his father push his mother onto the dining room table and pull her hair, causing her to fall to the floor. She went to stay with a friend after Ortega ordered her out of the house.
On the witness stand Thursday, Ortega confirmed that he confronted his wife about cheating but said it was she who first lashed out physically as he tried showing her the questionable texts.
“She’s hitting me. She’s upset, throwing f-bombs,” Ortega testified. He said his wife grabbed at her cell phone, and he pushed her to keep her away from him.
“At that point, I remember her going down to the floor,” and he fell as he tried to catch her, Ortega said. That was when the fight stopped.
“Was it your intention to ever hurt her?” Graves asked.
“No, it wasn’t,” Ortega replied. He also said he did not threaten his family to prevent them from testifying.
Asked under cross-examination why his son would agree to lie to police, Ortega said, “It’s his mom.” He also speculated that his wife self-inflicted the scratches and bruising to her neck, and that he’d seen it done in other abuse cases he’d investigated.
“With domestic violence incidents, there’s people who lie about injuries” to get their partners arrested, he said. Hays then asked him to cite the cases in which that occurred, but Ortega said he could not recall them.
“It’s been a while,” he said.
The trial resumed this morning with the remainder of Ortega’s testimony, followed the attorneys’ closing arguments.
Assigned to the CHP’s Woodland office at the time of his arrest, he has since been terminated from the law-enforcement agency.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene