Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols tried in several different ways and in the gentlest, most realistic and objective terms to impress on Daniel Rodriguez that the evidence against him is overwhelming, that perhaps a trial was not the best choice he could make. Rodriguez, who’d refused to be brought to court (he “wasn’t feeling well”) and spoke to the judge through a video connection, wouldn’t budge. He wants a trial on charges of raping and molesting a minor.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office secured the next-best thing to DNA evidence in rape cases: a detailed, recorded admission by Rodriguez that he had, in fact, molested and raped Simon(*), a young boy over several years starting when Simon was in 6th grade, when he was 11. The assaults lasted from 2019 to 2022.
Simon looked up to Rodriguez and saw in him a father figure and a trusted family friend who’d buy him things and even helped the boy’s mother with rent. Simon’s mother had known Rodriguez through her aunt, who was a foster parent.
The first assault happened as Simon and Rodriguez were on a couch together watching a movie. Simon in his forensic interview with a child protection team member recalled it was a school night. The boy and his family–an older sister, a younger sister, and his mother–lived in the southern portion of Palm Coast. Rodriguez began touching him in his privates, then assaulted him orally. After that, it happened “almost every time he came over.”
In June 2022 Rodriguez took him to Tampa (just the two of them), where the boy felt things went too far. By then he’d researched what had been happening, to the point of researching the word “grooming” and discovering that Rodriguez’s behavior toward him and his family fit the definition. Simon told his mother of the assaults in May 2023. She immediately contacted authorities.
On May 12 and 16, 2023, detectives conducted two “controlled” or recorded calls, one with Simon, speaking to Rodriguez, and one with Simon’s mother speaking to Rodriguez, who was unaware that authorities were listening. In both conversations, Rodriguez, according to his arrest report, “was very apologetic, taking full responsibility for having inappropriate sexual relations” with Simon, and speaking “very openly of how wrong it was of him.” Rodriguez said he needed help. He was equally apologetic to Simon’s mother, confirming that he saw himself as “in a relationship” with Simon, and making a distinction: Rodriguez said he never “had sex” with the boy, only oral sex. (The distinction does not apply in law, in that coital penetration is not a prerequisite for a sexual battery, or rape, charge.)
The judge had reviewed all the evidence and watched the child protection team interview already. The state had offered him 40 years in prison and a lifetime on sex-offender probation, plus a designation as a sexual predator. He turned it down. His attorney, Nicole Jordan-Dixon, counter-offered 30 years, though Rodriguez himself isn’t happy with that. He wants to serve 10 years, no more.
Nichols, the judge, told him that what he was asking for was unreasonable. “You’re relatively young,” Nichols told Rodriguez. “Ten years on something with respect to what the state has is not a realistic counter offer.” She all but gave him a get-out-of-jail card, within a reasonable time, meaning 30 years, especially for Rodriguez, who is just 27: he could be out in his mid 60s or mid-50s. “What your attorney has suggested actually is in the reasonable realm and and probably would have been something that could have resolved the case.”
Otherwise, it’s almost certainly going to be life in prison. Mandatory, too: if a jury were to find Rodriguez guilty on the gravest count–the rape of a boy younger than 12–the judge would have no discretion. It’s a capital crime. She would have to sentence him to life. And it’s just one of the five felonies against him. He also faces a life felony count of molestation and three additional second-degree felony counts of molestation, some involving the same boy but when he was older than 12, since the assaults took place over several years.
“I’m very neutral, but from an objective standpoint, the state has you acknowledging in two separate conversations what occurred, and then we have the young victim who was incredibly mature and very–it was quite compelling, his his testimony,” Nichols said. “It’s a matter of: do you want to have the chance of getting out of prison at some point, as opposed to if you’re found guilty at trial, I only have one sentence that I can impose in this case. I’m not saying this to be mean or harsh, but that means you’ll never see the light of day again. So really, your choices are having the opportunity to someday, possibly getting out of prison, or if you’re found guilty, never getting out. And that’s the reality. Unfortunately, I don’t have another option for you.”
Rodriguez wasn’t moved. He said he’s been in jail awaiting trial for 17 months. “I completely understand the parameters and ramifications of the circumstances that I now find myself in,” he said. “So with all things considered, I think that a trial is something that I would like to do.”
The judge conceded. Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark then had Simon’s mother–a single mother who at times struggled financially–testify: she described how Rodriguez spent time with her son, buying him games, a cell phone, food. She then describe the time when her son, wrenchingly, described what had been happening, how confused he was, how afraid he was to tell his mother. Clark also had the forensic interviewer testify. All the usual motions the state files in such cases, including one enabling the prosecution to introduce the incident that took place in Tampa, went the state’s way, essentially undisputed by the defense.
Docket sounding is set for mid-December, with trial shortly after that.
