Com. v. Bretado, A.

CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedOctober 20, 2025
Docket1838 MDA 2024
StatusUnpublished

This text of Com. v. Bretado, A. (Com. v. Bretado, A.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Com. v. Bretado, A., (Pa. Ct. App. 2025).

Opinion

J-S28012-25

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : v. : : : ANTONIO LEE BRETADO : : Appellant : No. 1838 MDA 2024

Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered October 24, 2024 In the Court of Common Pleas of Schuylkill County Criminal Division at No(s): CP-54-CR-0000276-2024

BEFORE: BOWES, J., OLSON, J., and KING, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED: OCTOBER 20, 2025

Antonio Lee Bretado appeals from the judgment of sentence of twenty

to forty years in prison, followed by two years of probation, imposed for

multiple convictions related to the sexual assault of his minor sister. After

careful review, we affirm.

On the morning of February 6, 2024, then-twenty-one-year-old

Appellant was at home with his mother (“Mother”), step-father, and siblings.

His two brothers were getting ready for school, while his younger sister

planned to stay home because she had been sick the day before. That day,

however, she was feeling energetic as normal. The girl, who was born in July

2017, was diagnosed as having non-verbal autism. After Appellant’s brothers

left for school and his step-father went to work, Mother ran an errand leaving

Appellant alone with his sister for approximately forty-five minutes around J-S28012-25

lunchtime. The girl was not potty-trained and required diapers, which only

Mother was supposed to change. When Mother returned, she noticed that the

daughter did not act excited like she typically would, and her hair was wet.

Appellant explained that he showered the sister because she had a dirty

diaper.

At around 2:00 p.m., when Appellant’s brothers returned home from

school, one of the brothers, who also had autism, was playing with the sister

for approximately fifteen minutes. He was verbal, but very sensitive to

physical contact and did not like being touched. The girl began to cry, so

Mother took her away to change her diaper. Mother, however, noticed blood

on the daughter’s inner thigh and “a big clot coming out of her vaginal area.”

See N.T. Trial, 6/12-13/25, at 62. She immediately took the girl to the

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (“CHOP”). On the way, the victim bled

through her diaper.

Once at CHOP, the girl had to be put under general anesthesia for the

examination and required emergency surgery. It was discovered that she had

a “complete transection of the hymen” and a laceration in the vaginal area.

Id. at 124. Corporal Karl Harig of the Tamaqua Police Department responded

to the potential sexual abuse call at CHOP. Following a discussion with Mother,

he initially suspected that Appellant’s brother, who had been alone with her

immediately before Mother discovered the blood, was responsible for the

victim’s injuries. Mother did not believe that he could have done this because

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he had an aversion to physical touch, and the clot was too large to have

formed within fifteen minutes. Corporal Harig attempted to interview the

younger brother at CHOP, but had difficulty communicating with him.

During the investigation, Corporal Wesley Levan of the Pennsylvania

State Police became involved and was tasked with conducting a series of

interviews. During Appellant’s interview, he confessed to injuring his sister

through digital penetration. Appellant admitted to the crime in multiple

subsequent video-recorded interviews. Corporal Levan informed Corporal

Harig of Appellant’s confessions, and Corporal Harig thereafter conducted his

own interview. On video, Appellant again explained his involvement and also

signed a written statement.

Based on the aforementioned events, Appellant was charged with two

counts of aggravated indecent assault of a child,1 and one count each of

aggravated indecent assault of a person less than thirteen years of age,

indecent assault of a person under thirteen years old, corruption of minors,

indecent assault of a person with a mental disability, and endangering the

welfare of a child. Appellant filed several motions in limine, including a request

to bifurcate the trial based on the corpus delicti rule, which the court denied,

____________________________________________

1 One of the charges was premised on lack of consent, and the other was based upon the victim’s mental disability. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 3125 (a)(1), (6), (b).

-3- J-S28012-25

stating that it would give a relevant jury instruction concerning that

evidentiary doctrine. See Order, 5/28/24, at ¶ 5.

The matter proceeded to trial. The Commonwealth introduced the

testimony of Mother, Appellant’s step-father, Candance LeFlame, D.O., an

expert in child abuse, and Corporal Harig to establish that the victim suffered

a sexual injury and the extent thereof. The Commonwealth then called

Corporal Levan, who explained his involvement in the case. Before the jury

was presented with the video-recorded interviews by him of Appellant, the

court issued the promised jury instruction regarding the corpus delicti rule.

The jury was then shown the interview videos. The Commonwealth recalled

Corporal Harig to play his recorded conversations with Appellant and to

present the written confession. The Commonwealth also recalled Mother, and

she recounted a conversation she had with Appellant after he confessed

wherein she told him that she could not forgive him for his crimes, and he

admitted that he could not forgive himself either. Appellant did not testify,

but his defense was that his brother, not he, committed the assault.

The jury convicted Appellant of all charges except for endangering the

welfare of a child, and the court deferred sentencing to obtain a pre-sentence

investigation (“PSI”) report. At the ensuing sentencing hearing, Appellant’s

counsel stated that Appellant was remorseful, did not have a prior criminal

history, was still a young man, and had aspirations outside of prison. See

N.T. Sentencing, 10/24/24, at 9-10. Appellant exercised his right to

-4- J-S28012-25

allocution, maintaining that he did not commit these crimes and his brother

was responsible. Id. at 10-16. The court imposed the standard ten-year

minimum sentence for the two counts of aggravated indecent assault of a child

and ran them consecutively. The remaining terms of incarceration were run

concurrently, and the court imposed a consecutive two-years of probation for

the corruption of minors offense. The court stated that a consecutive sentence

for the two counts of aggravated assault was appropriate for the protection of

the public and Appellant’s rehabilitative needs. Id. at 16-17.

Appellant filed a post-sentence motion seeking a hearing. See Motion

to Reconsider Sentence, 11/1/24. The court granted the request, and at the

hearing Appellant asserted that the court should have imposed concurrent,

rather than consecutive, sentences for the aggravated assault convictions.

See N.T. Motion for Reconsideration, 1/17/25, at 3. He essentially reiterated

the position that he deserved a lesser sentence based on his age, lack of prior

offenses, and business aspirations. Id. at 3-4.

The court denied the motion and this timely appeal followed. Appellant

and the court complied with the requirements of Pa.R.A.P. 1925. He raises

the following issues for our consideration, which we have reordered for ease

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Com. v. Bretado, A., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/com-v-bretado-a-pasuperct-2025.