Barpery is found not guilty

A Superior Court jury has unanimously found security guard Parvez MD. Barpery not guilty of charges that he raped a 17-year-old girl in front of his girlfriend at a motel in San Jose last year.

After deliberating for about four hours yesterday, the six-person jury—composed of four women and two men—reached a verdict of not guilty of sexual assault in the first degree.

Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho, who presided over the trial and decided on the misdemeanor charge, also found the 44-year-old Barpery not guilty of disturbing the peace.

Barpery appeared emotionless upon hearing the jury’s and Camacho’s verdict.

The alleged victim, who is now 18 years old, only went inside the courtroom shortly after Camacho finished explaining his not-guilty verdict.

When asked to comment on the verdict, Barpery only stated that he is thankful to the Commonwealth.

Barpery’s counsel, attorney Daniel Guidotti, said he and Barpery were happy with the verdict. “We believe that justice was done in the Commonwealth today,” Guidotti said.

In acquitting Barpery, Camacho said the case is about consent and credibility.

Camacho found the testimonies of the government’s three main witnesses—the alleged victim, her cousin, and Barpery’s former girlfriend, Daisina Suda—not credible. He said the testimonies of the alleged victim and Suda were inconsistent with their prior statements.

He said the alleged victim’s cousin was the most unbelievable of all, when she tried to explain her inconsistent statements by accusing the police and Barpery of conspiring to deal drugs and discredit her statements.

Camacho said he has pieced together the events based on the testimonies of the government’s and defense’s witnesses.

The judge said that Suda asked the alleged victim’s cousin to join her and Barpery in a threesome, which the court believed took place. The cousin agreed to the threesome in exchange for money, he said.

Camacho said he believes that sex did in fact take place and the alleged victim agreed to have sex in exchange for money.

“As disgusting as these sex acts of Barpery and Daisina Suda with these 16- and 17-year-olds, the sex was with consent,” he pointed out.

Camacho said that after pimping the two girls, Suda proceeded to hound Barpery for money, even to the point of twice chasing him with a knife. The judge noted that several government and defense witnesses testified that Suda repeatedly tried to get money from Barpery. Barpery eventually could not continue paying Suda, and by extension, the two girls. The police were then contacted as a way to pressure Barpery to pay, Camacho said.

What Suda and the two girls did not count on is that once a police report is filed, it has a life of its own and they were not able to control the domino effect, the judge said.

Camacho said Suda and the two girls could not keep their stories straight, at times making it up as they went along, creating bigger and bigger inconsistencies.

Camacho said that if Barpery had been charged with prostitution, he would be guilty.

“But sexual assault in the first degree—which means sexual penetration without consent—that is not what the testimonies and evidence that the court heard in this trial,” the judge said.

Assistant attorneys general James McAllister and Margo Brown-Badawy, who prosecuted the case, refused to comment on the verdict.

The jurors began deliberating before noon after the prosecution and the defense counsel rested their case and gave their closing arguments.

The alleged victim and her cousin had accused Barpery of sexually assaulting them in separate incidents in May 2013 at a motel in San Jose while they were still minors. Suda, 41, also accused Barpery of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl in front of her inside the motel.

The trial began on Monday.