DETROIT (WXYZ) — Wednesday marked day one of deliberations in the sexual assault case against former Sinai Grace nurse Wilfredo Figuero Berrios. No verdict was returned.
Berrios is charged in eight separate sexual assault cases at various facilities where he’s worked. This is the first of those eight cases to be tried, in which he faces multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct.
His defense attorney tells 7 News Detroit the other seven cases are awaiting trial dates and are all going to be in 3rd Circuit Court. So, if and when the jury comes back with a verdict what impact if any will the jury’s decision have on his future cases?
7 News Detroit took that question to attorney Matthew Schneider, a former federal prosecutor and expert litigator, with Honigman LLP. He said what happens in this case will have no impact on whether those cases go forward but could bear weight in other ways.
Schneider explained, “Each case is separate, but can you use the fact that there is a prior conviction in another case? It’s possible that prosecutors can get that in if they can show that that’s a pattern of conduct. That’s something that is the MO of the defendant and they could argue to get that prior evidence into the next case.”
He added another point, "In criminal cases, sometimes different criminal conduct is all charged in the same case with multiple different counts, multiple different victims. Here, these are charged in separate cases. So, you could have witnesses testifying in this case and then the same witnesses could testify in a different case in the future. But if there's a different victim, of course, that victim might testify just in this case or not, and then maybe not even appear in some other case in the future."
