In Pareja v. State , 295 Ga. App. 871 673 SE2d 343 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed Pareja’s conviction for one count of child molestation, finding that the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict and that the trial court properly admitted certain similar transaction evidence. We granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in ruling that the trial court properly admitted, as a similar transaction, evidence of an act of molestation that Pareja committed 26 years before his conviction in this case. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm. As set forth in the Court of Appeals opinion, the relevant facts of this case are as follows: 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. 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.” N. O. testified at trial, stating that Pareja touched her “in the private” with his hand and with a towel after she told him that she was itching. She told Pareja to stop, but he refused. During the trial, the child demonstrated the touches on a doll, opening the doll’s legs and rubbing its vaginal area with her fingers. The State also played the videotaped forensic interview of N. O. for the jury. At trial, Pareja testified that he used a wet towel to clean N. O.’s buttocks and vaginal area after she had a soft bowel movement. Pareja denied using his bare fingers or touching N. O. improperly. The State also presented similar transaction evidence. D. R., who was friends with one of Pareja’s daughters as a child, testified that she spent the night at Pareja’s home when she was 12 years old. D. R. awoke and realized that Pareja’s fingers were inside her vagina; he left the room after D. R. screamed. In another incident, Pareja awakened D. R., took her into the bathroom, and forced her to masturbate him and to perform oral sex. According to D. R., she never told anyone about the incidents until Pareja’s daughter called to tell her that her father had been accused of child molestation. Id. at 872-873. The acts which were introduced as similar transaction evidence occurred approximately 26 years prior to Pareja’s conviction in this case. Id. at 873 2.
