Boxer Morel charged with sex assault
10:59 PM 6/28/04
Ed Treleven Wisconsin State Journal

Madison boxer Eric Morel was charged Monday with sexually assaulting a drunken 15-year-old girl 19 months ago. <

Morel's lawyer, Victor Arellano, said he is baffled that it took so long to charge Morel after an investigation in which Morel cooperated with police. <

"What do they know now that they didn't know 14 months ago?" Arellano asked. <

Morel, 28, former world flyweight champion, was charged with second-degree sexual assault of a child for an alleged incident Dec. 1, 2002, at the Fitchburg apartment of his half-brother, Frederick Santos-Perez, 24, now of Columbus. Santos and Morel's brother, Samuel Morel, 36, of Chicago, were also charged with second-degree sexual assault. <

All three are scheduled to appear in court on July 15. <

The girl reported the incident the day after it allegedly happened. In September, Fitchburg police filed a search warrant seeking a second DNA sample from Eric Morel after a sample that had been taken earlier was misplaced. <

The criminal complaint varies little from the facts set out in that search warrant. <

According to the complaint: <

The girl and her friend, another 15-year-old, met Morel, Samuel Morel and Santos at a now-defunct bar on State Street. The girl said she only recalls leaving the bar and waking up the next day with a swollen lip and pain between her thighs. <

The girl's friend told police that at the Anton Drive apartment, she saw Morel kissing and touching her very drunken friend. She also said Morel exposed himself. Later, she told police, she went into a bedroom and saw Santos having sex with the girl, with Morel standing nearby. <

She told police she later went into the bedroom and found a group of men, some naked, standing around her friend. She got her friend dressed and tried to use the telephone but was prevented from using it. Santos drove the girls home. <

Santos and Samuel and Eric Morel told police they did not have sex with the girl that night. <

But police said Eric Morel's DNA was among a DNA mixture found on the girl and that his DNA was on a shirt that she was wearing that night. DNA from Santos and from Samuel Morel was also found on the girl, tests indicated. <

On Monday, Fitchburg Police Chief Tom Blatter and District Attorney Brian Blanchard said the long delay in charging Morel was due mostly to the time it took for analysis of the DNA samples. The last of the lab reports was finished in April, Blatter said. <

The first DNA sample from Morel was mislabeled with an incorrect case number, Blatter said, but that did not taint the investigation. Morel was charged as a result of the second sample, he said. <

Blatter said no officers were punished because of the error. <

But Arellano said he is suspicious of the mishandling of that DNA sample and the long history of the case. <

"It's a bit of a mystery that the case has been handled in the way that it's been handled," he said. "We'll prepare a vigorous and strong defense." <

Morel, whose lifetime professional boxing record is 34-1 with 18 knockouts, lost his World Boxing Association flyweight title with a Dec. 6 loss to Lorenzo Parra. He won the North American Boxing Organization's junior bantamweight championship on March 20 by defeating Jesus Rojas. <

USA Today boxing columnist Dan Rafael this month ranked Morel seventh in the world among 118- and 115-pound bantamweights. <

Arellano, who is also Morel's business lawyer, said Morel continues to work out at Ford's Gym on East Washington Avenue in preparation for an upcoming fight in Puerto Rico. <

Arellano said Morel is also deeply involved in raising his daughter.This is not Morel's first brush with the law. He was sentenced in November 2002 to 20 days in jail for his second drunken driving offense. He also has numerous convictions for speeding and driving with a revoked or suspended license. <

Contact Ed Treleven at etreleven@madison.com or 252-6134.