She'd had run-ins since, skating by without serious jail time for trying to sneak $50 worth of batteries into her purse, for being delinquent on court fees. But by May 29, 2014, her luck ran out. Renee was pulled over—once again in a Walmart parking lot—and arrested for failing to provide identification to the Penitas Police Department officer who had stopped her. This seemingly inconsequential arrest would lead to the traumatizing sexual assault, and then six months in jail."I know you are not going to believe me," Renee told a female police officer after the assault, according to a statement obtained from the officer by the Texas Ranger investigating the case. "I know I made mistakes but no one deserves to have that happen to them.""I asked what happened," Penitas Police Officer Elizabeth Garza told investigators, "and her exact words were, 'I got fucked in jail.'"Read More: When a Woman is Raped in Rural Alaska Does Anyone Care?
In the course of the night, Peralez coerced Renee to stroke his penis several times. According to the lawsuit, he then forced her to give him oral sex. In the morning, according to Renee's statement, she was bleeding from her vagina.When Renee reported the attack to the La Joya Police Department lieutenant on duty, he offered her tacos, showed her surveillance video from the night before, and failed to offer her medical services, according to the lawsuit and Renee's statement to the Texas Rangers.Though, Peralez, the police dispatcher accused of the rape, was eventually indicted and pleaded guilty to a crime relating to abusing his duties as a civil servant, La Joya City Manager Mike Alaniz (who is named personally in the lawsuit) continued to downplay the alleged attack in a brief statement on the telephone to Broadly. "It's an unfortunate situation, but I can honestly tell you the video will tell you who is the instigator," Alaniz tells Broadly, implying that Renee started the sexual contact with Peralez. Alaniz declined to elaborate. "Did he do wrong? Yes, he did. Did he pay the price, the penalty? Yes, he did."He continued putting his arms through the cell and as I lay on the concrete bed, he fingered my vagina with his fingers. He also asked me one time to turn around and put his hand in my vagina, he actually put his entire hand into my vagina and I felt tremendous pain and pressure, I never believed that could be done. He then put his fingers in my ass. I was crying because he kept abusing me for hours and no one came in.
On June 3, 2014, five days after being arrested and assaulted, Renee was brought back to court. The City of Penitas had dropped its complaint against her, the one charging that she failed to produce ID in the Walmart parking lot, but the State of Texas maintained that Renee had violated her probation, based on a warrant for her arrest from the previous year. Renee had violated six counts of her probation, the state said, finding that "the Defendant violated the conditions of community supervision" and sentenced Renee to thirty months in state prison of which she served six.With Renee locked up, the case against her attacker appeared to languish. The La Joya Police Department's Ramon Gonzalez visited her address as promised, according to a report he later wrote, included in Peralez's criminal case, but Renee's sister told him she was in prison.La Joya's then-Police Chief Geovani Hernandez allowed Peralez to resign, and at his direction, no follow-up investigation was conducted, according to the Texas Rangers report."For personal reasons I will not state, I Felipe Peralez am choosing to resign from Telecommunications Officer," says a letter he scrawled in messy handwriting, now part of his criminal case record.But word of the assault eventually reached Texas Ranger Bobby Garcia anyway, when he was investigating another case. Garcia's report does not explain how he got the tip, and through a Ranger's spokesman Garcia declined to answer questions about the case.I know you are not going to believe me. I know I made mistakes but no one deserves to have that happen to them.
Renee was released from prison early, in January 2015, and when Garcia made contact with her she was nervous, he writes in his report, prompting her to hire an attorney. She then agreed to give Garcia the account of her assault. Jail surveillance video that Garcia describes in his investigative report—footage showing Renee crying, undressing, and Peralez repeatedly touching her through the cell bars—appears to confirm Renee's story.Armed with his detailed report, Garcia obtained a warrant to arrest Peralez, whose criminal defense attorney did not return Broadly's messages requesting an interview with his client. Shortly after being arrested, Peralez claimed in his interview with Garcia not to recognize himself in the surveillance video. "Not really, I suppressed a lot," he said in Garcia's Rangers report.Peralez then offered this, before nervously asking for a lawyer: "Yeah she is the one that actually started it, she was trying to get me to go inside the cell with her, like stuff and talking to me, she is the one that told me to do everything that I was doing, and stuff."Yeah she is the one that actually started it, she was trying to get me to go inside the cell with her.
In exchange for pleading guilty, the Hidalgo County District Attorney's office agreed to drop the three felony counts of violating an inmate's civil rights and instead only convicted Peralez of official oppression, the misdemeanor. Peralez was sentenced to 180 days in state prison and 30 days in county jail, according to court documents. He was credited 27 days for time already spent.But, to the surprise of some officials in the county, none of the counts Peralez was charged with are considered sexual assault under the law. The counts, experts say, are intended for guards that have consensual sex with inmates.Peralez is not required to register as a sex offender.Gonzales, the La Joya police chief and former lieutenant who initially investigated the case, says he cannot say why Peralez was not convicted with any sexual assault crime or required to register as a sex offender. "That's valid, that's one of the questions that I have asked myself," he tells Broadly."I certainly think that this individual should have to register," says Hope Palacios, the Hidalgo County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case. She says her office decided on the charges in the indictment before she got involved with the case.
*This pseudonym was given to victim by Texas Rangers, the agency that investigated case.