Accused Sex Offender Gets New Trial

Antonio Gutierrez

A Corozal Free Zone employee who in August 2011 was accused of raping a sixteen-year-old minor has been granted a retrial. Thirty-six-year-old Antonio Gutierrez was convicted of raping the minor and sentenced to eight years before Justice Herbert Lord in the Orange Walk Supreme Court.  The decision of his verdict was unanimous, but the judges of the Court of Appeal, headed by President, Justice Manuel Sosa were of the view that the trial judge erred in law when he failed to direct the jury on the need for special caution acting on the evidence of the virtual complainant.  After he was granted an appeal and his eight-year sentence set aside, Gutierrez was granted bail in the sum of four thousand five hundred dollars plus one surety of the same. The girl in the trial told the jurors that on August twelfth, 2011, Gutierrez raped her, but Gutierrez’s defence was that they had consensual sex. He was represented by attorney Anthony Sylvester.