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Chalifoux v. State

The evidence supported a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the crimes occurred in Lowndes County.

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Louis Chalifoux was convicted and sentenced on two counts of child molestation. On appeal he contends that the State failed to establish venue. When a defendant pleads not guilty and stands for trial, the State must establish venue beyond a reasonable doubt. Jones v. State, 272 Ga. 900, 902 537 SE2d 80 2000. “The State may establish venue by whatever means of proof are available to it, and it may use both direct and circumstantial evidence.” Id. at 903. “As an appellate court, we view the evidence in a light most favorable to support the verdict and determine whether the evidence was sufficient to permit a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the crime was committed in the county where the defendant was indicted.” Chapman v. State. 275 Ga. 314, 317 565 SE2d 442 2002.

Evidence was presented to show that Bert Rutland, the chief of police of Lake Park, Georgia, investigated the alleged child molestation. Lake Park is located in Lowndes County. Rutland worked with officers from the Lowndes County sheriff’s department and agents of the Lowndes County Department of Family and Children’s Services. At an interview at Lake Park city hall, the child implicated Chalifoux, her father, and someone named “Pops”. The child told a clinical psychologist that her father and Pops had inserted a finger into her private area. The child told an investigator from DFCS that the incident involving her father occurred in the bedroom at her home while sleeping with her father. Chalifoux and the child lived in Lake Park, inside the city limits, at his mother’s house. On the videotape of the child’s interview by DFCS, the child said that the incident happened at her grandmother’s house.

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