A Fulton County jury found Joaquin Pareja guilty of one count of child molestation. Pareja appeals from the denial of his motion for new trial, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence. He also contends that the trial court erred in admitting similar transaction evidence and that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance. For reasons that follow, we affirm. On appeal from a criminal conviction, the defendant no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence, and we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict.1 We neither weigh the evidence nor determine witness credibility, but only determine the sufficiency of the evidence.2 Conflicts in the testimony of the witnesses, including the State’s witnesses, are a matter of credibility for the jury to resolve. As long as there is some competent evidence, even though contradicted, to support each fact necessary to make out the State’s case, the jury’s verdict will be upheld. The testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a fact.3 Viewed in this light, the evidence shows that Pareja and his wife were friends with Grace Chamorro. In November 2005, Chamorro’s five-year-old daughter, N. O., told her that “Uncle Joaquin” had “cleansed” her vagina the preceding day. According to Chamorro, N. O. stated that she felt “shameful” and told her mother not to tell anyone about the incident. When Chamorro inquired further, N. O. stated that Pareja cleaned her “hundreds” of times and told her that “when little children are cleansed, it is normal for them to itch, and because of itching, they will laugh.” N. O. demonstrated to her mother that Pareja cleaned her while she was on her hands and knees on the bed and also while she was on her back with her legs spread.
Chamorro took N. O. to Dr. Meghan Nicolini, a private psychologist. Nicolini testified that N. O. told her that her uncle “wiped her private parts a hundred times,” initially with his hands and then with a towel.4 Nicolini asked N. O. whether Pareja “might have been cleaning her,” and the child responded, “No.” N. O. also told her that she tried to move away from Pareja during the incidents, but he pulled her legs and instructed her to remain still. Nicolini contacted the Department of Family and Children Services, who assigned case manager Araina Williams to the investigation. Williams interviewed Pareja, and he told her that he wiped N. O. “to clean her” after she complained to him that she was “itchy.”
