Appeals court grants man new trial on CSC charges over ‘erroneously admitted’ evidence

ALLEGAN COUNTY — The Michigan Court of Appeals, in a split decision, vacated a man’s criminal sexual conduct conviction and granted him a new trial over “erroneously admitted” evidence during his trial.

Matthew Holtman was convicted by an Allegan County jury in April 2022 of two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, following an April 2019 arrest. He was sentenced as a second-offense habitual offender to serve 39-60 years in prison for each count, served concurrently.

However, that conviction and sentencing has been vacated after a successful appeal. Holtman argued that the trial court “erroneously admitted other-acts evidence” and hearsay evidence.

Judges Noah Hood and Allie Greenleaf Maldonado agreed with Holtman and remanded the case for a new trial. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Christopher Murray argued the convictions should stand.

The case arises from charges that Holtman sexually assaulted a minor, M, between January 2016 and March 2019. During that period, Holtman was between the ages of 30 and 33, while M was between 5 and 8.

Holtman was engaged to M’s mother, J, and is the father of J’s two other children, but is not M’s father. The sexual abuse allegedly took place in several locations over three years, including J’s home in Allegan County and Holtman’s residence in Kalamazoo.

M reported the incidents to J in February 2019 and testified the incidents stopped after that. Two months later, M was examined by Debra Simms, a doctor at the Helen DeVos Center for Child Protection. Simms testified during the trial as an expert witness in sex abuse. That testimony was the basis of Holtman’s hearsay appeal.

Additionally, Holtman’s cousin AD, testified during the trial that Holtman sexually assaulted her when she was 2 to 9-years-old and Holtman was “6 or 7” to “roughly 14, maybe 15.” AD had not come forward about the assaults prior to the trial. That testimony was the grounds for Holtman’s improper admission of other-acts evidence appeal.

Holtman first argued that the court erred in allowing AD’s testimony as other-acts evidence because “the risk of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed the evidence’s probative value.” Defense counsel had objected to the evidence before and during the trial.

The COA majority agreed and said the trial court’s failure to consider the “Watkins factors” from MRE 403, Watkins, 491 Mich at 486, was an abuse of discretion. In addition, they said the acts occurred at an age Holtman was “too young to be held criminally or civilly liable,” making the testimony more prejudicial than probative.

“First, it is unclear what, if any, probative value evidence of his sex acts at age 6 or 7, and 14 or 15 have for conduct when he is 33,” Hood and Maldonado wrote. “The risks, however, are clear: a jury will hear this evidence and view Holtman as an irredeemable reprobate, someone who has been a sexual deviant his entire life.”

With uncertainty on how the jury would have acted in the absence of AD’s testimony, a new trial was ordered.

“Because this evidence undermines our confidence in the result, we must vacate the conviction and remand for a new trial,” Hood and Maldonado wrote.

Murray disagreed, writing the “similarities between defendant’s other acts and the charged crime are enough that the probative value of the testimony is not substantially outweighed by the risk of unfair prejudice.”

Subscribe: Receive unlimited digital access to your local news coverage

The judges in the majority agreed with Holtman on his hearsay appeal as well. They said Simms’ testimony did not fall under exceptions that allow hearsay testimony to be permissible.

Although statements regarding diagnosis and treatment do fall in those exemptions, the judges wrote that no doctors M might have seen while assaults were taking place, nor a primary care doctor Simms referred to during testimony, were brought in to testify. Simms’ testimony was therefore, the judges wrote, “to allow the jury to hear another report of the sexual assault but with the gloss and authority of an expert witness” and shouldn’t have been allowed.

A date for Holtman’s new trial has not yet been scheduled.

— Contact reporter Mitchell Boatman at mboatman@hollandsentinel.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Man gets new trial on CSC charges over ‘erroneously admitted’ evidence