Last week of jury trial docket light on cases, heavy on consequences

A light number of cases are docketed for the final week of the Comanche County jury trial docket begins Monday.

One case ended before it even began.

Matthew James Gonzalez, 37, of Lawton, was slated to begin trial in Comanche County District Judge Jay Walker’s court on Monday. He pleaded guilty last Tuesday to a felony count of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, records indicate. He is slated to return to court on June 19 for his sentencing.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty to molesting a 15-year-old relative since, she claimed, she was 7. The crime is punishable by between three and 20 years in prison.

According to the probable cause affidavit, the girl told investigators Gonzalez has been touching her since she was 7 years old but she didn’t tell anyone “because she did not know how to.” She said the inappropriate contact stopped when she entered middle school.

In another case, an apartment maintenance man accused of sexually assaulting a co-worker and a tenant in 2021 is set to begin trial for one of those cases Wednesday in Chief District Judge Scott D. Meaders’ courtroom.

Detravius Jarelle Bell, 40, of Lawton, is charged with a felony count of sexual battery, records indicate.

According to the affidavit, Bell made a sexual comment to to a tenant at the unidentified apartment complex where he worked while she was standing on her balcony with her roommate and he was in a golf cart below her.

Later that day, while home alone, the woman said Bell came over and said he was going to fix a damaged ceiling in her apartment. After he finished, she said he walked up behind her while she was in the kitchen and grabbed her butt before fondling her inappropriately, the affidavit states.

After the tenant reported the incident, a co-worker told police that between October 2019 and August 2021, Bell had forced her to perform oral sex on him at least once, according to the charge.

Bell had been charged in a separate case for a felony charge of forcible sodomy and is ordered to appear Aug. 28 for placement on the September/October jury trial docket, records indicate.