Toro v. State

In 1993, Edwin Toro was convicted of three counts of sexual battery, 28 counts of sexual activity with a child, and one count of battery. He was acquitted for four other charges. The victim was his minor stepdaughter. Mr. Toro's plenary appeal from his judgment and sentence was affirmed in Toro v. State, 642 So. 2d 78 (Fla. 5th DCA 1994). In 1996, he filed a Rule 3.850 motion with the trial court asserting that his trial counsel conducted an inadequate pre-trial investigation. The trial court denied the motion, and this court affirmed. Toro v. State, 689 So. 2d 1086 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997). A petition by Mr. Toro for a writ of habeas corpus was denied in 1998. Mr. Toro now appeals the order of the trial court summarily denying his second Rule 3.850 motion, in which he alleges that his sentence should be vacated in light of newly discovered evidence. Because the evidence is not newly discovered, we affirm. At trial, Mr. Toro's stepdaughter testified in excruciating detail, covering at least 100 pages of transcript, concerning the sexual crimes purportedly committed by Mr. Toro and suffered by her from the time she was nine years old until she was 15 years old. She testified further that she had not been sexually active with any other person during that time. The defense brought forth evidence, however, that the victim had been sexually involved with a boyfriend. Specifically, a medical professional employed by the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services said that when the victim sought an abortion, the victim reported that she had sexual relations with a boyfriend. A second witness, an expert on sexual abuse, also testified that the victim told her she was having relations with a boyfriend. All of this testimony was before the jury when it evaluated the evidence.