People v. Baskin CA5

Background Baskin and Rachel met in July of 2004. At the time, she was 19 and living in Selma and he was a Marine in North Carolina. At the suggestion of Rachel’s good friend

All further statutory references are to the Penal Code unless otherwise stated.

2 Liz, whose boyfriend James Moreno was in the Marines with Baskin, Rachel contacted Baskin and the two began communicating over the telephone. Rachel, a student at Fresno City College, lived with her mother, Linda, and her brother, Christopher2, who worked as a correctional officer (collectively victims).3 According to Baskin, he was a martial arts instructor at Camp Lejeune and had just returned from a tour overseas. Prior to that, he had been stationed in Japan. Rachel met Baskin several times in person before he was supposed to visit her in Selma for the entire week before Christmas 2004. Baskin did not show up as scheduled and did not answer repeated telephone calls. He finally contacted Rachel on Christmas Eve and claimed he had been at the airport in Fresno for a week, but had broken his phone and did not know Rachel’s number and been unable to call her. When Rachel later confronted Baskin with a ticket showing he…