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Local man, granted new trial after conviction on child sex-assault charges, chooses to take plea bargain instead

By Dean Shalhoup - Senior Staff Writer | Sep 28, 2021

Santos Cerritos, 58, last known address 66 Ward St., Manchester

NASHUA — Unless some type of unforeseen development arises between now and Oct. 22, the aggravated felonious sexual assault case of Manchester resident Santos Cerritos will finally be settled.

Cerritos, who was arrested seven years ago Wednesday on allegations he sexually assaulted a then 6-year-old girl in her Nashua home, would be charged with two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault, which accused him of assaulting the girl, whose parents Cerritos was friends with, while he was working at the house renovating a bathroom for them.

Cerritos went to trial about 2 1/2 years later, and in February 2017 was convicted by a Superior Court jury. He was sentenced about two months later to 10-20 years in State Prison.

Cerritos was coming up on two years behind bars when Superior Court Judge Charles Temple granted him a new trial in an order handed down in March 2019.

Court dockets being what they sometimes are, it took almost a year’s worth of hearings and continuances before the court scheduled — tentatively — Cerritos’s new trial for April 2020.

But by then, the COVID-19 pandemic was raging, bringing pretty much everything and everyone to a standstill.

Eventually, Cerritos and his lawyers notified the court he was negotiating a plea agreement with prosecutors, which the sides eventually reached.

The court then scheduled a plea and sentencing hearing for Oct. 22 in Hillsborough County Superior Court South.

According to the notice of intent to plead guilty that his lawyers recently filed with the court, Cerritos will plead guilty to one count of second-degree assault — extended term penalty in exchange for 5-10 years in State Prison, with all of the minimum suspended for five years on the condition Cerritos abides by all the terms of the plea deal.

Those include serving 5 years of probation, that he have no contact with the girl or her family, and generally remain on good behavior.

Meanwhile, factors that prompted Temple, the judge, to grant Cerritos’s motion for a new trial centered on missteps by Cerritos’s trial lawyer that included a failure to consult forensic experts and settling on a “reasonable doubt” strategy without considering the possibility of challenging the prosecution’s forensic evidence.

In his 14-page order, Temple concluded that “deficient performance (by Cerritos’s trial attorney) actually prejudiced the outcome of (Cerritos’s) trial.”

Temple wrote that the attorney’s “understanding of the forensic evidence was flawed,” and his decision to not consult with experts contributed to Temple’s finding that the lawyer’s missteps met the standard for ineffective representation of counsel.

Attorney Jeffrey Odlund, then a public defender and currently in private practice, represented Cerritos at the hearing. He motioned, successfully, for Cerritos’s release from prison pending the new trial.

Temple also agreed to rescind the two guilty verdicts the jury delivered in February 2017, and vacated the sentencing order that required Cerritos to register as a sex offender for life.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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