Jury acquits former deputy prosecutor Alvin Lee Guzman Jr. of sex assault charges
YAKIMA – Former Deputy Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Alvin Lee Guzman Jr. has been acquitted of charges he sexually assaulted his ex-girlfriend.
A Yakima County Superior Court jury found Guzman not guilty Friday on two counts of indecent liberties and four counts of fourth-degree assault after about 5½ hours of deliberation over two days.
Guzman appeared to quietly sob after the verdicts were read and hugged some of his supporters afterward.
A former deputy prosecutor in the Yakima County Prosecutor’s Office’s sex crime unit, Guzman was charged in February 2022 after his ex-girlfriend raised allegations that Guzman was climbing into bed with her without her permission and touching her.
She told Yakima sex-crime detectives that she had used surveillance cameras to capture two incidents in July 2021 where he came into her bed and touched her while she slept.
When police seized the cameras as part of a search warrant, memory cards were missing from two of the three cameras, including one of the videos the woman said showed Guzman sexually assaulting her. Video from the remaining camera, which showed Guzman in her room, was shown to the jury.
Washington State Patrol crime lab technicians were not able to find Guzman’s DNA on the woman’s underwear, bedding or other samples, but found Guzman’s DNA in a stained shirt the woman said Guzman had with him in the missing video.
During the trial, Ulvar Klein, Guzman’s lawyer, attacked the woman’s credibility, implying that she had put “spy cameras” in her bedroom in order to get an advantage over Guzman when they sold the house they had bought together. It was when the cameras were discovered, Klein argued, that the woman had to come up with a story that would paint Guzman in the worst possible light.
Guzman did not take the stand to testify on his own behalf.
Kittitas County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Jodi Hammond said the woman’s stories were consistent, and that the woman had been “gaslighted” and manipulated by Guzman to the point where she even questioned if what had happened to her was “normal.”
“We’re here because Alvin Guzman never thought he was going to get caught,” Hammond said.
Kittitas County prosecuted the case, which was heard before Kittitas County Superior Court Judge Candace Hooper to avoid potential conflicts of interest with Yakima County court staff.
Guzman was transferred out of the special assault unit Aug. 9, 2021, and placed on unpaid administrative leave when the charges were filed in February 2022. Before his being placed on leave, a misconduct complaint was filed against Guzman in October 2021 after two employees said he hugged them or stroked their arms and backs.
Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Joe Brusic said he did not renew Guzman’s appointment with his office in December 2022, effectively firing him.