SAN ANTONIO (MCT) — An Army officer accused in a sex-trafficking case in San Antonio now says he did not have sex with a 15-year-old girl at the center of the charge against him, despite a previously reported statement to the contrary from his former lawyer.
Lt. Col. Raymond Valas' lawyer argued Thursday that, unlike former President Bill Clinton's sex scandal and subsequent denial, his client has taken a lie-detector test — and passed.
“And it's a polygraph by a well-respected, expert polygrapher” who is also used by the Texas Department of Public Safety, defense attorney John Convery added.
During the Thursday hearing, Convery urged Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery to allow Valas' polygraph results to be admitted in his case. The judge instead granted prosecutor Bettina Richardson's motion to prohibit mentioning of the polygraph during Valas' upcoming trial for sex trafficking of a minor.
The judge did allow Convery to research the matter further to see if he can come up with convincing legal authority to change Biery's mind. Polygraph results have been allowed in civil cases and administrative proceedings, but the judge noted he has not seen one allowed in a criminal case yet.
Previous news reports have said that Valas, 41, did not know the girl was a minor, but Convery said those reports are incorrect. Convery said the reports stem from statements made by Valas' previous lawyer during an earlier court hearing in Syracuse, New York, where Valas was initially arrested in May.
The Syracuse lawyer was not saying Valas had sex with the girl but instead was describing a hypothetical situation, Convery said.
“He was saying, 'The worst this could be is he didn't know the girl was 18,'” Convery said. “That got translated into some suggestion that he had sex with the girl. That is simply not correct.”
Convery also said it is undisputed that the girl, who testified in two previous trials, said she was told by her pimps to tell everyone that she was of age. The judge noted that only Valas and the girl know what really went on in Room 420 of the Airport Hilton on Aug. 26, 2013.Prosecutors said the girl was just one of several prostitutes Valas contacted that day from ads on the Internet.
Convery argued that Valas, who was an Army War College Fellow at Syracuse University when he was arrested, wanted to interview real people for a thesis on trafficking. Valas, who is also in the New Hampshire National Guard, had been in charge of at least one humanitarian mission in Central America and had been focusing on the reach of gangs there.
“He was working on research for his thesis at the War College,” Convery said. “He wanted some views from outside the ivory tower ... on whether or not different gangs are involved in sex trafficking.”
The FBI claimed a co-defendant, Marcus Deshawn Wright, 38, coerced the girl into prostitution and — with the help of Amber Doak, 20, and Doak's boyfriend, Malcolm Deandre Copeland, 22 — marketed the girl as an escort on the Internet.
In separate trials, Wright and Copeland were convicted of sex trafficking of minors. Doak pleaded guilty to the charge. All await sentencing.
gcontreras@express-news.net
Twitter: @gmaninfedland
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©2014 the San Antonio Express-News. Distributed by MCT Information Services
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