Kevin Townsend v. State of Indiana

26 N.E.3d 619, 2015 Ind. App. LEXIS 794, 2015 WL 600836
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 12, 2015
Docket09A02-1407-CR-464
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 26 N.E.3d 619 (Kevin Townsend v. State of Indiana) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kevin Townsend v. State of Indiana, 26 N.E.3d 619, 2015 Ind. App. LEXIS 794, 2015 WL 600836 (Ind. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

BROWN, Judge.

[1] Kevin Townsend appeals his convictions for vicarious sexual gratification as a class B felony and possession of child pornography as a class D felony. Townsend raises two issues, which we revise and restate as:

I. Whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain his conviction of vicarious sexual gratification; 1 and
II. Whether his right to compulsory process was violated when the trial court excluded a witness from testifying.

We affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] The facts favorable to the conviction reveal that, in December 2008, thir *622 teen-year-old S.W. lived with her grandmother in Tennessee. During her school Christmas break that year, S.W. traveled to Logansport, Indiana, to visit her mother. The boyfriend of S.W.’s mother had a sister named Amy Spampinato, who had two on-again-off-again boyfriends, Townsend and Lawrence Gill. Townsend worked as a truck driver and drove throughout the country, and he would stay with Spampina-to on the weekends when he was in town. Gill also sometimes stayed with Spampina-to.

[3] S.W. met Townsend during her December visit and had seen him with Spam-pinato before. Earlier that spring, Spam-pinato threw a joint birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s for one of her daughters and S.W. and had separate birthday cakes for each girl, and S.W.’s cake had thirteen candles on it. S.W. told Townsend during her visit in December that she was thirteen. At that time, Townsend was twenty-six years old and Spampinato was twenty-eight years old.

[4] During S.W.’s visit, Townsend became interested in S.W. and told Spampi-nato he wanted to have sexual contact with S.W., specifically stating that he “wanted to eat her pussy.” Transcript at 177. He “repeatedly” asked that Spampinato approach S.W. to see if S.W. would have sexual contact with him. Id. When asked, S.W. told Spampinato that “she didn’t want anything like that.” Id. Also, while Spampinato was in the shower, Townsend asked S.W. to let him perform oral sex on her and that she should “let [him] do it now while [Spampinato] is in the shower;” S.W. refused and turned away when Townsend tried to kiss her. Id. at 36.

[5] On another day that December, Spampinato sent S.W. upstairs to wake Townsend, and when she did he looked up at her, reached out his arm, lifted S.W.’s shirt to expose her skin, and began rubbing her side. S.W. walked out of the room and was “scared” and “nervous,” and she “didn’t know what to think.” Id. at 40-41. S.W. told Spampinato about Townsend’s advances, but “it didn’t matter” to Spampinato. Id. at 41.

[6] On either the 28th or 29th of December 2008, S.W. and her cousin C.S., who was also visiting Logansport and had turned fourteen years old several days before Christmas, went to spend the night at Spampinato’s house. Before they went, S.W. told C.S. about Townsend’s advances, they discussed whether to stay with Spam-pinato, and they decided to go to Spampi-nato’s because Townsend was not going to be there. After S.W. and C.S. arrived at Spampinato’s house, the three drove to Dollar General to purchase garbage bags, and Spampinato received a phone call from Townsend. While they were talking, C.S. stated that she was bi-sexual, which Townsend heard. He confirmed with Spampi-nato what C.S. stated, and told Spampina-to to “work something out.” Id. at 180. Townsend told her specifically that he wanted her “to set up to have a threesome with the girls and to satisfy them until he got home,” and to “perform sex acts on them that would make them happy so that they would stay there until he got there.” Id. at 180-181. Townsend also told Spam-pinato that she “better make them happy until he got there or else” and she “better not mess this up like [she does] everything else.” Id. at 181, 190. Townsend planned to have sex with S.W. and C.S. when he returned. Id. at 181.

[7] Later that evening, Spampinato, S.W., and C.S. drove to a drugstore, where Spampinato purchased vodka, and then to a grocery store, where Spampinato purchased orange juice. They returned home, went upstairs to Spampinato’s bedroom, and began mixing orange juice and vodka drinks. S.W. and C.S. both drank “[a] lot” *623 of alcohol and became intoxicated. Id. at 55, 89.

[8] At one point, Spampinato gave C.S. black lingerie to try on and began taking pictures of C.S. in the lingerie with the camera on her cell phone. S.W. also tried on the lingerie, and Spampinato took pictures of her. Townsend requested that Spampinato send the pictures to his cell phone, and Spampinato did so. “[R]ight after” the photographs were taken, Townsend, who had pulled his semitrailer truck into a parking lot in Kentucky for the night, began speaking on the phone with Spampinato, and he continued to speak on the phone with Spampinato, S.W., and C.S. during the remaining events that night. Id. at 109. Townsend told S.W. and C.S. that he wished he could be there with them, and he told C.S. that “he wanted to eat [her] out.” Id. at 90. While on the phone with Spampinato, Townsend told Spampinato “exactly what he wanted [her] to do” to the girls, including performing oral sex on the girls and to use a vibrator on them that Townsend had recently purchased for her. Id. at 190.

[9] The girls began trying on more of Spampinato’s clothes, and they were “drinking and drinking, laughing, you know, just hanging out,” and then things “switched up” and S.W. “ended up lying on the bed and her pants were off.... ” Id. at 57-58. At one point, a pornographic video started playing on Spampinato’s television. Spampinato began taking pictures of S.W.’s and C.S.’s vaginas and sent them to Townsend. Spampinato made a video on her cell phone and attempted to send it to Townsend, but he did not receive it. After the cell phone video failed to send, Townsend told Spampinato to use a camcorder she had in her bedroom “to record what was going on so that he could see it when he got home.” Id. at 185.

[10] Spampinato touched S.W.’s vagina and inserted her fingers into S.W.’s vagina. She also put her fingers inside C.S.’s vagina. Spampinato then retrieved a vibrator Townsend had given her days earlier and used it on C.S. by placing it in C.S.’s vagina. At one point while C.S. was speaking to Townsend on the phone, S.W. asked C.S. to hang up with Townsend and Spampinato stated: “no, he’ll like that.” Exhibit 2b at 4:10. Soon after, S.W. inserted the vibrator into C.S.’s vagina, and while this was occurring Spampinato was speaking to Townsend and stated: “Right now she’s playing. Yea she’s using my toy on [C.S.].” Id. at 7:05-7:15. Afterward, S.W. was speaking to Townsend on the phone and laughed and told him “I’m frig-gin’ scared,” and she told C.S. not to “record it and send it to [Townsend] because I’m talking to him right now.” Id. at 9:00-9:15. Spampinato used the vibrator on S.W. and asked her “does it feel good,” but she stopped because she was afraid she would hurt S.W. Transcript at 66. S.W.

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Bluebook (online)
26 N.E.3d 619, 2015 Ind. App. LEXIS 794, 2015 WL 600836, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kevin-townsend-v-state-of-indiana-indctapp-2015.