A parade of witnesses told jurors Thursday how a Houston-area Air Force recruiter transformed their lives after pursing liaisons with them, some in the back room of his office.
A mother and her daughter, identified as Victim 15, took the stand and described the damage left by Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez.
“I can't explain how this changed everything,” said the mother, who is not being identified to protect the victim.
Sixteen witnesses appeared, many of them telling a strikingly similar story about Rodriguez, who was found guilty Wednesday of a long list of sexual-misconduct charges. The witnesses testified Thursday in the punishment phase of his trial, which continues Friday.
The women, one who was 16 when she met Rodriguez, initially encountered him at schools, job fairs and his Lake Jackson office. At first he was professional, but Rodriguez later sent flirtatious texts that often evolved into detailed descriptions of his sexual fantasies.
One of them involved a ritual. He'd shutter the blinds of the office, lock the door and hang up a “closed” sign before taking the women to a small back office.
“He would send me sexting messages saying what he would do with me,” a 21-year-old Bay City nursing school student said.
“He asked me my sexual preferences, if I was ever interested in a woman,” said Victim 1, a senior airman.
Whenever he had a chance, Rodriguez tried to bring his fantasies to life. An airman based in California said that one day, he went through his ritual at the office and then hugged and kissed her and asked for sex. The woman said no.
A woman identified as Victim 11 went with him to the back office, where she performed a sex act on him. Later, she couldn't believe what happened.
“I didn't want to be there anymore. I felt regret, shame,” the woman said, adding that after his wife called, she eyed a photo of his children on a desk.
“My gosh,” she said to herself, “what did I just do?”
A jury of eight male officers quietly listened as Victim 15's mother told of how she stumbled over texts and graphic photos of Rodriguez that were on her daughter's cellphone.
Her discovery was made on a Sunday night, Nov. 13, 2011, a critical moment in a case that's among the worst in years for the San Antonio-based Air Force Recruiting Service.
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