VENTURA COUNTY NEWS : Oxnard Trustee Found Guilty of Battery

An Oxnard Elementary School District trustee was found guilty of misdemeanor spousal battery Wednesday after a Ventura County jury concluded he shoved his wife into a broken glass window during a domestic dispute earlier this year.

Ray Gonzales, 42, declined to comment on the verdict as he walked alone from the courtroom.

The conviction is the latest blow for the school board member and former Oxnard planning commissioner, who retains his position as a trustee despite the conviction.

Last month Gonzales was fired as director of the county-run La Colonia CalWORKS center--a termination he plans to fight before a civil service commission. Now, Gonzales faces a possible jail sentence for battering his 29-year-old wife. A sentencing hearing is set for Monday morning.

“Some time in custody is certainly warranted,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Wendy Macfarlane said after the verdict was read. “I thought it was pretty evident Mr. Gonzales thought this was no big deal.”

Gonzales was charged with one count of spousal battery for a Feb. 7 incident in which his wife, Nicole, was cut on the arm with a piece of glass during an argument at the couple’s Oxnard home.

Nicole Allen-Gonzales later told relatives and a doctor that her husband caused the injury by pushing her into an already broken glass window. But she told police at the time she had tripped over children’s toys, falling onto a couch and hitting her arm on a shard of glass.

During a two-day trial in Ventura County Superior Court, the homemaker again denied her husband was at fault. She testified she had made up a story on domestic abuse because she was having an affair and feared losing her three children in a divorce.

Jurors said they believed she was lying on the stand.

“We basically tried to chart out when she told the truth and when she didn’t,” said juror Craig Thompson of Ventura. “I really have no idea why she lied like that.”

Initially, the jury was split with four members voting for acquittal, five for conviction and three undecided. But after six hours of deliberations over two days, Thompson said, the jury unanimously agreed the wife’s statements, both on an application for a restraining order and to her doctor and relatives, were strong evidence that Gonzales had battered her.

Jurors were also swayed by the testimony of the couple’s 9 1/2-year-old daughter, who they said appeared to have been coached in her testimony.

“There is not one 9-year-old in the world who says, ‘I don’t recall,’ ” said juror Martha Escalante, also a Ventura resident.

The Oxnard fifth-grader testified Monday she did not see her father push her mother on Feb. 7. The elementary school student said she was watching cartoons in her bedroom. But a district attorney investigator later testified that during a May 12 interview the child had described in detail the altercation between her parents.

Among the most incriminating evidence against Gonzales, jurors said, was the testimony of his ex-wife. Mariam Bakhtiarifard testified Gonzales hit her as many as 20 times during their five-year marriage in the mid-1980s.

Thompson said her testimony was “very compelling” and showed a pattern of abusive conduct.

Talking with jurors after the hearing, prosecutor Macfarlane said Gonzales will probably be placed on probation for three years and required to undergo 52 weeks of domestic violence counseling.

Although the penalty for misdemeanor spousal battery can include a year in jail, Macfarlane said that is unlikely in Gonzales’ case because he has no prior criminal record. The prosecutor, however, said she intends to ask the judge to sentence Gonzales to 30 days in jail.

Defense attorney Willard Wiksell declined to comment on the verdict or the sentencing options facing his client.

Wiksell had argued there was no evidence Gonzales had pushed his wife. He told the jury in closing arguments that Allen-Gonzales had testified truthfully when she said her husband was not at fault.

Gonzales was arrested March 8 after police responded to a second incident at the couple’s home, where the defendant told authorities he found his wife naked with another man.

At that time, Allen-Gonzales told police her husband had actually battered her a month earlier. She filed for divorce in April, just days after Gonzales was taken into custody after threatening to kill himself over his marital problems, according to court testimony.

After Gonzales’ arrest, several prominent Oxnard officials filed letters vouching for his integrity, though no character witnesses were called during this trial.

Gonzales has been described as a community hero for saving the life of Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez’s wife, Irma, during a 1993 workplace shooting that left four people dead.

Gonzales served as a city planning commissioner in 1997 and 1998, before his election to the Oxnard elementary district board.

Supt. Richard Duarte said Wednesday the district’s attorney had researched whether a criminal conviction would require Gonzales’ removal from the board. Duarte said a felony conviction would justify such action, but not a misdemeanor offense unrelated to school business.