People v. Tennin

515 N.E.2d 1056, 162 Ill. App. 3d 520, 113 Ill. Dec. 897, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3401
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedNovember 10, 1987
Docket2-86-0419
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 515 N.E.2d 1056 (People v. Tennin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Tennin, 515 N.E.2d 1056, 162 Ill. App. 3d 520, 113 Ill. Dec. 897, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3401 (Ill. Ct. App. 1987).

Opinion

JUSTICE UNVERZAGT

delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant, Colette Tennin, was charged in three separate informations filed in the circuit court of Lake County with three counts of exploitation of a child, two counts of pandering, one count of juvenile pimping, three counts of intimidation and one count of unlawful restraint. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 38, pars. 11 — 19.2(A)(1), (A)(2), (A)(3), 11 — 16(a)(1), (a)(2), 11-19.1, 12-6(a)(l), (a)(2), 10-3.) The intimidation counts charged that the defendant threatened the complainant with physical harm and physical confinement with the intent to cause her to perform an act of prostitution. A jury found her guilty of two counts of intimidation and one count of unlawful restraint, and the court sentenced her to two concurrent three-year terms of imprisonment.

She contends the court erred: (1) in excluding evidence of the complainant’s prior sexual activities; (2) in admitting evidence of a statément about the instant offenses made by the complainant to her mother; and (3) in allowing in evidence at the sentencing hearing a victim-impact statement prepared by the complainant’s stepfather!

The complainant, P.S., was 12 years old in October 1985. On October 24, walking home from a gas station where she had stopped to buy some candy after school, she was forced into a parked car by three women whom she knew: Dedra Johnson, the 17-year-old defendant, Colette Tennin, and defendant’s niece, 14-year-old Wanda Welch. P.S. was driven to a building on 10th Street in North Chicago and forced into an upstairs apartment where Dedra and her three children lived. P.S. remembered talking with North Chicago detective VanDien during an investigation of the subsequent events in the apartment, but she did not remember telling him that she voluntarily entered the car and the apartment. VanDien testified P.S. first stated she was forced into the car and the apartment, and that she later stated she entered both voluntarily.

Present in the apartment when P.S. and the three women entered were two more of the defendant’s nieces, 16-year-old Joyce Welch and 13-year-old Marlene Welch, and Jeanette Leonard and Dedra’s three children. P.S. testified that the defendant, Wanda, and Jeanette slapped and hit and kicked her in a back room, apparently in retribution for some remarks P.S. had made. P.S. testified the defendant threatened to kill her if she told anybody what happened. P.S. then went into the bathroom to wash her face, and the defendant, Wanda and Jeanette came into the bathroom. Wanda held a potato peeler to P.S.’s face while the defendant told P.S. to pull her own pants down and put her finger in her vagina. P.S. complied, and the defendant then told P.S. to lick that finger and lick her (the defendant’s) foot. The defendant also made P.S. put shaving cream in her own mouth.

After they all left the bathroom, the defendant spat in P.S.’s face and told her not to tell about the events which just occurred or she would be looking for her. The defendant then looked out the window, called a man upstairs, and told P.S. that she was going to act as a prostitute. P.S. disrobed at the defendant’s command. The man came upstairs, gave the defendant $50, and P.S. testified, “the man then started pumping me.” Afterward, the defendant called another man upstairs, and he had sex with P.S. for free. Jeanette then took P.S. to Lamont Coleman’s aunt’s house. From there, P.S. went to Mary Peets’ house and called her mother, who came to get her.

P.S.’s mother testified that on October 24 P.S. called her from Mary Peets’ house at 11 p.m. P.S.’s mother called the police and went with them to Mary Peets’ house, where P.S. told her mother what happened.

North Chicago detective John Phelps testified that he interviewed the defendant about 11 p.m. on November 15, 1985, at the North Chicago police station. The defendant told Phelps that P.S. arrived at Dedra’s apartment at noon on October 24. Dedra was mad at P.S. because P.S. had been talking about her. Dedra slapped P.S. and hit her with a belt. Wanda and Jeanette then took P.S. into the bathroom. The defendant went into the bathroom and saw P.S. masturbating. After that, everyone went into the living room, where Wanda refused P.S.’s request to leave.

The defendant admitted to Phelps that she wanted P.S. to be a prostitute and said that she had slapped P.S. The defendant denied she ever had other girls sell their bodies, but said that she had set up dates for other girls and that she got part of the money when they had sex with men. Phelps stated the defendant never told him that she forced P.S. to have sex on October 24.

The State rested. The defendant’s motion for a directed verdict on all counts was granted as to the juvenile pimping charge, but denied as to the remaining counts.

The defendant, Colette Tennin, testified on her own behalf. She said that she only made the statement to detective Phelps because he told her that once she made the statement, she could go home to her children. She further testified that she had been refused a request to call her mother, and that she could not understand the waiver form she signed because she was in special education classes and could not read well.

She testified she was at Dedra Johnson’s apartment on October 24, 1985, when P.S. arrived with Jeanette Leonard at 1 p.m. Dedra threatened P.S. and threatened the defendant because the defendant would not beat P.S.

P.S. went to the washroom, and Jeanette and Wanda followed her in. The defendant testified the door of the bathroom was open and she went in. Jeanette shut the door, and she put a potato peeler next to P.S.’s face. P.S. started crying, and the defendant asked Jeanette to stop. Jeanette refused because she was angry about P.S. having made remarks about her. The defendant left the bathroom, and when she returned, she saw P.S. sucking on her fingers. Wanda and Jeanette were laughing, and Jeanette suggested putting shaving cream in P.S.’s mouth. P.S. subsequently returned to the living room, where she ate french fries and seemed unconcerned about the incident in the bathroom. Jeanette and P.S. later left the apartment.

The defendant denied that she ever saw P.S. masturbate or that she had ever forced her to do so. Colette denied that Dedra had a car, that Dedra knew how to drive, or that Dedra or anyone else had picked P.S. up in a car. The defendant said the only man who entered the apartment while P.S. was present was Dedra’s boyfriend. He did not have sex with the complainant, nor did anyone else. The defendant denied she had received any money or forced P.S. to have sex with anyone.

The jury was instructed as to accountability, and, as noted, the jury found the defendant guilty of two counts of intimidation and one count of unlawful restraint. She was acquitted of the other charges.

Defendant first contends the court erred in excluding evidence of P.S.’s prior sexual activities, because it was relevant and because it was not prohibited under section 115 — 7(a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963 (the rape shield law) (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1985, ch. 38, par. 115 — 7(a)). The State asserts the proffered evidence was properly excluded as immaterial and irrelevant to the charge of intimidation to commit prostitution.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
515 N.E.2d 1056, 162 Ill. App. 3d 520, 113 Ill. Dec. 897, 1987 Ill. App. LEXIS 3401, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-tennin-illappct-1987.