Attorneys gave opening statements and called their first witnesses Thursday in the trial of Dr. Jose Turcios, who is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl during a dentist appointment.
Turcios, who co-founded the west Little Rock dental clinic Healthy Smiles with his wife, is facing felony second-degree sexual assault charges. His trial at the Pulaski County Courthouse began with an extended jury-selection process Wednesday.
Turcios pleaded innocent last year.
Pulaski County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jeanna Sherrill began her statement by describing a series of escalating events that reportedly ended with Turcios groping the victim, kissing her and placing her hand on his genitals while she was inhaling anesthetic gas during a scheduled visit on the morning of March 4, 2015. On that day, the girl was scheduled for a two-hour appointment for adjusting braces, restorative care and fillings.
Sherrill said in the girl's visits to Healthy Smiles leading up to that day, Turcios had patted the teenager on her buttocks, told her that she was the prettiest patient, and he touched her face and cheek in a sensual way.
"She trusted her dentist so much that even when things happened that made her uncomfortable, she still kept going to her dentist" until he "went too far," Sherrill said.
The girl had been seeing Turcios for five years and only had a few more months before her braces were to be removed.
Turcios' attorney Bill James characterized the series of events as an escalation of excuses the teen was fabricating or exaggerating to avoid going to the dentist after a long, painful and drawn-out braces treatment.
"It's either she's perceiving this improperly because of the gas, or she's making it all up," James said during his opening statement. "This is about getting what she wants."
The state prosecutors called seven witnesses to the stand Thursday, including the girl and her grandmother, who took the girl to her dentist appointments and was the first to hear her complaints while driving home after the March 2015 appointment.
While in the car, the girl told her grandmother that she wanted to find a new dentist but did not divulge full details until she spoke with her mother later that night.
When questioned by James, the grandmother said that in the months leading up to that appointment, the teenager made regular complaints about feeling "uncomfortable" during the painful braces treatment. James also cited several Facebook posts published by the girl lamenting her dentist visits. James cited a Facebook post she made on the morning before her visit that read: "Two hour dentist appointment at 8 in the morning??! :("
"It's not that he's touching her, it's that she doesn't like going," James said.
Turcios was arrested eight days after the March 2015 appointment while at an athletic club with his then 8-year-old son by Little Rock detective Tabitha Carter, whom prosecutors also called to the witness stand Thursday.
After his arrest, Carter and detective Jarred McCauley questioned Turcios for over an hour. An audio recording of that interrogation was played for the jury. In it, Turcios stressed that nothing out of the ordinary happened that day.
"We are a very busy office. I see 40 patients every day," he said in the recording, saying he was struggling to remember the appointment with the girl. "How could that happen if my assistant was right there?"
After a review of Happy Smiles surveillance video obtained through a warrant, Carter said Turcios was left in the room alone with the girl five times during her two-hour visit, for about a minute at a time.
During Carter's investigation, she contacted a colleague whose wife was a dentist and learned about a woman who had accused Turcios of groping her in 2008.
When the woman was 20 years old she worked as an administrative assistant in a dentist office where Turcios also practiced, the woman said after prosecutors called her to the witness stand. While there, she said, Turcios agreed to do cosmetic work on her front six teeth for no charge.
According to her testimony, she went into the office one day in January 2008. She was given nitrous oxide gas before Turcios and a dental assistant began working.
"Dr. Turcios and the assistant both were talking between each other while I was on nitrous and were joking and laughing and making sexual innuendos," the woman said during her testimony. "The first time the assistant went out of the room, maybe 45 minutes into the procedure, Dr. Turcios leans down and said, 'The things that I want to do to you.'"
She laughed it off, she said, but Turcios proceeded to place his hands on her stomach near her belt line. The woman later told her sister, who also worked in the office, and her boss. However, nothing was reported to police.
The teenage girl was the final witness the jury heard from Thursday. Tears streaked her face as she answered questions from prosecutors and defense attorneys.
"Before he did his work, I was put on nitrous oxide and the assistant left the room, and [Turcios] leaned down and he told me, 'I want you so bad,' and he leaned down and he kissed my mouth. And then he said 'what about you?' I laughed -- I didn't know what to say," she said.
The assistants came and went throughout the procedure, she said, and the girl described the sexual advances he made in the subsequent times he was left with her.
James took particular interest in the phrase she accused Turcios of using and pointed to Facebook posts where she used the phrase "I want you so bad" in comments on unrelated content.
"The truth is that those are your words you put in his mouth," he told her.
She denied his accusation, holding a tear-soaked tissue to her face.
The girl's testimony will continue this morning. The defense also is expected to provide expert testimony from anesthesiologist Steven Fogel of the University of Missouri.
Metro on 04/29/2016