STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. MAHENDRAKUMAR MANEKLAL PATEL, Defendant-Appellant.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 7-465 / 06-0846
Filed September 19, 2007
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
MAHENDRAKUMAR MANEKLAL PATEL,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Eliza J. Ovrom,
Judge.
Mahendrakumar Patel appeals his convictions for attempted murder and
stalking. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Dennis Hendrickson and
James Tomka, Assistant Appellate Defenders, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Darrel Mullins, Assistant Attorney
General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, and Nan Horvat, Assistant County
Attorney, for appellee.
Heard by Huitink, P.J., and Vogel and Baker, JJ.
2
BAKER, J.
Mahendrakumar Patel appeals his convictions for attempted murder and
stalking contending there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions.
We affirm the trial court with respect to both convictions.
I. Background and Facts
In August 2005, Patel made three trips from Missouri to the Des Moines
area to see Lisa Bui. Patel and Bui had a romantic relationship during the time
Bui lived in Missouri with her parents.
Their relationship involved frequent
gambling and the exchange of large sums of money. 1 Bui tried to break up with
Patel a number of times, but he would talk her out of it by threatening to commit
suicide or to tell her parents about their relationship. In the summer of 2005, Bui
moved to Iowa without telling Patel. She moved to get away from Patel and to
resume a relationship with Paul Freeman, a man she had previously dated.
Patel came to Des Moines on August 1. He suspected Bui had come to
Des Moines, and he planned to rent a dark, mid-sized car in order to follow Bui
and to avoid detection. He told the car rental clerk that his girlfriend had taken
his money, used him, and now loved someone else, and that he wanted to teach
her a lesson. The clerk called the police, and Patel was arrested.
On August 8, Patel rented a car in St. Louis and returned to Des Moines.
He went to Freeman’s house and parked. Freeman and Bui saw Patel. They
called the police, and Patel was arrested. Stalking charges were filed against
him, and a no contact order was entered prohibiting contact with Bui.
1
Patel claims he gave Bui approximately $300,000 to $400,000 over a four-year period.
She testified that Patel frequently gave her money, or asked her to hold his gambling
money, but denies she received the amount claimed by Patel.
3
Patel returned to Iowa on August 16 for an August 18 court date concerning
the stalking charges. On August 16, Patel followed Freeman throughout the
evening and eventually drove to Bui’s apartment complex.
He called Bui
eighteen times between 9:00 and 10:15 p.m. She returned his calls at 10:21
p.m., and they talked for eighty-two minutes. On August 17, Bui and Patel spent
the day at Valley West Mall. Although Freeman gave Patel $300 to get a motel,
Patel spent the night of the 17th in Bui’s apartment. On August 18, Patel and Bui
went together to Patel’s court appearance. They spent the rest of the day at
Prairie Meadows casino in Altoona.
On August 21, Patel came to Bui’s apartment early in the morning. Bui
testified she heard a noise and found Patel at her door with the door open. She
tried to get him to leave, but he talked her into letting him in. In the afternoon,
they went to Prairie Meadows. 2
Patel and Bui left the casino at approximately 7:39 p.m. While driving on
Hubbell Avenue, Patel told Bui he had to urinate and pulled into the parking lot of
a storage and vault business.
Bui testified that Patel then opened the back
passenger door and grabbed her violently by the hair, placed a towel over her
face to smother her, and attempted to tie her wrist to a headrest with a plastic
flex cuff. She fought back, begged him not to hurt her, and told him she loved
him. Bui got away and ran toward Hubbell, where she flagged down a passing
motorist, Tyler Sandin. She called Freeman and 911. Patel drove off quickly.
As the police drove Bui to the police station, Patel called her a number of times.
2
Patel testified he gave Bui money to hold for him. At one point, he thought she had
given him $2000, but she had given him only $1500. This made him angry, because he
was unable to place an extra bet that he believed would have allowed him to win $5000.
4
He told Bui he was going to kill himself, that he loved her, and he asked for her
forgiveness. Police later discovered his car with a flat tire in a ditch. 3
Patel was arrested at Prairie Meadows on August 23. He was charged with
attempted murder in violation of Iowa Code section 707.11 (2005), attempted
burglary in violation of sections 713.1 and 713.6, and two counts of stalking (Bui
and Freeman) in violation of section 708.11. 4 Following a February 2006 bench
trial, Patel was convicted of one count of stalking (Bui) and attempted murder.
II. Merits
Patel contends there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions.
We review challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence for correction of errors at
law. Iowa R. App. P. 6.4. As with a jury verdict, we will uphold the trial court’s
findings in a jury-waived case if they are supported by substantial evidence.
State v. Weaver, 608 N.W.2d 797, 803 (Iowa 2000). “Evidence is substantial if it
would convince a rational fact finder that the defendant is guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt.” State v. Webb, 648 N.W.2d 72, 75-76 (Iowa 2002) (citing
State v. Heard, 636 N.W.2d 227, 229 (Iowa 2001)).
Patel contends there was insufficient evidence to establish his guilt because
Bui’s testimony lacked credibility. The trial court acknowledged that Bui made
false statements to the police, such as telling officers that she had not had a
3
During a police interview, Patel claimed that, as they left the casino, he told Bui he
planned to tell her parents about their relationship and the large sums of money he had
given her, and about an abortion she had earlier. She begged him not to and, when they
came to a stoplight, jumped out of the car. At trial, Patel testified that he had told Bui
that he planned to talk to her mother and to file charges against her for having stolen
checks from him. Bui begged him not to call the police and jumped out of the car.
4
The case involving the harassment and interference charges in connection with Patel’s
August 1 arrest was continued by agreement of the parties.
5
romantic relationship with Patel, and that Bui “did several things that seem
illogical,” such as inviting Patel to stay overnight and going to the casino with
him. The court noted that “[i]t is not unusual for domestic abuse victims to act in
ways that seem illogical to those not in an abusive relationship.” See State v.
Taylor, 689 N.W.2d 116, 127 n.5 (Iowa 2004) (citing a survey wherein
prosecutors reported that domestic abuse victims are often uncooperative).
The trial court found that Patel was not a credible witness and cited
several examples to support its finding, including Patel’s testimony that he
always kept the towel on the headrest of the passenger seat of his car, but in an
earlier interview said he had used it to dry off after showering, and his testimony
that Bui jumped out of his car at a red light at the intersection by the storage and
vault business, but there is no stoplight there. The court also rejected Patel’s
argument that Bui fabricated the entire incident in order to avoid repaying money
to him, finding the “argument is undercut by Patel’s repeated statements . . . that
he gave money to Bui because he loves her, and that he did not expect her to
repay him.”
The trial court concluded Bui was a more credible witness than Patel. The
court noted, for example, that Sandin’s testimony that Bui came running onto
Hubbell Avenue was consistent with Bui’s testimony. The court also noted that
Bui’s claim she met Patel at Valley West Mall on August 17, so that he would not
learn where she lived, was more credible than Patel’s claim that he spent the
night of August 16 at Bui’s apartment.
Cell phone records showed Patel
telephoned Bui at 8:20 a.m. and 9:49 a.m. on August 17. Further, if he had spent
6
the night at her apartment, there would have been no reason for them to meet at
the mall.
Credibility determinations are usually left to the trier of fact, who is in a
better position to evaluate the credibility of witnesses. Weaver, 608 N.W.2d at
804 (citing State v. Myers, 382 N.W.2d 91, 97 (Iowa 1986)). When determining a
witness’s credibility, “the trial court may consider whether the testimony is
reasonable and consistent with other evidence, whether a witness has made
inconsistent statements, the witness’s appearance, conduct, memory and
knowledge of the facts, and the witness’s interest in the trial.” State v. Frake, 450
N.W.2d 817, 819 (Iowa 1990). Additionally, even where a witness’s credibility is
“of the lowest order,” and that witness’s testimony alone would be insufficient to
support a conviction, if the testimony is corroborated, “[w]e cannot interfere with a
judgment rendered on the mere ground of conflict of evidence and want of
credibility of one witness whose testimony is supported, as well as assailed, and
not entirely destroyed.” State v. Bixby, 39 Iowa 465, 465-66 (1874).
In this case, the trial court found Bui was a more credible witness than
Patel, and in its recitation of credibility findings noted the bases for its conclusion.
Further, the physical evidence (e.g., Bui’s hair found on the towel and the
package of plastic flex cuffs on the floor of the back seat) and Bui’s cell phone
records corroborate Bui’s testimony. See Weaver, 608 N.W.2d at 804 (upholding
guilty verdict in face of attack on credibility of witness where verdict was “strongly
supported by the physical evidence on which the court relied”). We conclude
there is substantial evidence to support the trial court’s verdict.
AFFIRMED.
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