State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A17-0816

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Jason Earl Moos,
Appellant.

Filed March 19, 2018
Affirmed
Smith, Tracy M., Judge

Sherburne County District Court
File No. 71-CR-15-1102

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Kathleen A. Heaney, Sherbur ne County Attorney , Dawn R. Nyhus, Assistant County
Attorney, Elk River, Minnesota (for respondent)

Scott Cody, Tarshish Cody, PLC, Richfield, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Bjorkman, Presiding Judge; Rodenberg, Judge; and
Smith, Tracy M., Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
SMITH, TRACY M., Judge
Appellant Jason Moos challenges the suffi ciency of the evid ence to support his
conviction of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He argues that the victim’s testimony

2
required corroboration because her testimony and her reports before trial were inconsistent
and contradictory and that no corroboration was provided. We affirm.
FACTS
Moos is the cousin of J.H., the former boyfriend of the victim’s mother. From 2003
to 2005, Moos would babysit the victim, M.F. when she was about three to five years old,
along with her younger brothers, when the family lived in an apartment in St. Cloud. After
J.H. and M.F.’s mother split up in 2005, the children continued to see Moos that year when
they would visit J.H. at his home in Big Lake.
In 2013, then 14-year-old M.F. told her friend, K.B., that she had been sexually
assaulted as a child by a man named Jason. K.B. did not share th is information with
anyone. Nearly a year later, M.F. told her boyfriend, J.M., that Moos had sexually molested
her from age three to age eight. J.M. told his mother, and J.M.’s mother told M.F.’s mother,
R.S., about the sexual assault. This was the first time M.F.’s mother learned of the abuse.
In early 2015, R.S. asked M.F. about the sexual abuse. After M.F. told her mother
about the abuse, and following a contact from M.F.’s scho ol, a Sherburne County police
officer contacted M.F.’s mother. Around this same time, M.F. wrote a note recounting her
memories of Moos’s sexual abus e. M.F. later brought this note to her interview with
Sherburne County Child Protection Investigat or Julie Mlsna and sent it to St. Cloud
Investigator Christopher Voth, who interviewed the other witnesses.
M.F. reported Moos’s abuse to Mlsna dur ing the initial forensic interview in
February 2015. In June, M.F. spoke abou t the abuse with a person from the county
attorney’s office. A couple months later, M.F. gave a statement—including that Moos had

3
penetrated her—to a different person at the county attorney’s offi ce. Following these
accounts, Moos was charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct.
At trial in October 2016, M. F., who was seventeen years old at the time, testified
against Moos. K.B., J.M., and R.S. also testified, as did Mlsna, Voth, J.H., and Moos. The
jury found Moos guilty, and he was convicted of first-de gree criminal sexual conduct for
sexual penetration of a person under 13 years of age.
Moos appeals his conviction.
D E C I S I O N
In considering a claim of insufficient evid ence, review by an appellate court is
“limited to a painstaking anal ysis of the record to determ ine whether the evidence, when
viewed in a light most favorab le to the conviction, was suffi cient to permit the jurors to
reach the verdict which they did.” See State v. Webb, 440 N.W.2d 426, 430 (Minn. 1989).
Appellate courts cannot retry the facts. See State v. Merrill, 274 N.W.2d 99, 111 (Minn.
1978). Accordingly, appellate courts assume that the jury believed the state’s witnesses
and disbelieved any cont radictory evidence. See State v. Moore , 438 N.W.2d 101, 108
(Minn. 1989). An appellate co urt will not disturb a verdict if the jury, acting with due
regard for the presumption of innocence and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable
doubt, could reasonably conclu de the defendant was guilty of the charged offense.
Bernhardt v. State, 684 N.W.2d 465, 476-77 (Minn. 2004).
Moos contends that the only evidence supporting his guilt is M.F.’s inconsistent and
contradictory testimony. The crux of his argument is that “M.F.’s testimony was so
basically unreliable that, to support the jury’s finding, the [s]tate also needed to present

4
evidence corroborating it.” In support of hi s assertion that corroboration was necessary,
Moos argues that “key components” of M.F.’s story were inconsistent and contradictory.
Moos points out that M.F. did not mention penetration in her earlier reports and that, while
M.F. testified to being in immense physical pain when Moos alle gedly penetrated her,
neither M.F.’s mother nor J.H. recalled M.F. complaining of pain as a child. Moos also
emphasizes the discrepancies between M.F.’s reports and her trial testimony as to whether
there was digital penetration and the number of times Moos put M.F.’s hand on his penis.
Additionally, Moos notes that, although M.F. stated in an earlier report that he never spoke
to her during the sexual abuse, she later reported specific statements that Moos would make
to her. Finally, Moos points to M.F.’s “w idely different” ranges on how long the sexual
abuse lasted, varying from her early report to her boyfriend of the abuse ending at age eight
to a later report to the child-p rotection investigator of it e nding when she was five or six
years old.
Moos’s argument is unconvincing. It is well-established that “a conviction can rest
on the uncorroborated testimony of a single credible witness.” State v. Foreman , 680
N.W.2d 536, 539 (Minn. 2004) (quotation omitted); see also Minn. Stat. § 609.347, subd. 1
(2016) (providing that “the testimony of a vic tim need not be corroborated” in a criminal
sexual conduct prosecution). 1 The determination of whethe r a witness is credible is a

1 Appellant argues that State v. Ani requires more. 257 N.W.2d 699 (Minn. 1977). It is
true that, in Ani, the Minnesota Supreme Court stated that the absence of corroboration of
the complainant’s testimony “in an individual case . . . may well call for a holding that
there is insufficient evidence upon which a jury could find th e defendant guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt.” Id. at 700 (quotation omitted) (emphasis omitted). However, in State
v. Foreman , the Minnesota Supreme Court clarified that “ Ani clearly states that

5
matter for the jury, not the reviewing court. See State v. White , 357 N.W.2d 388, 390
(Minn. App. 1984).
With respect to the issue of penetrati on, the difference between M.F.’s trial
testimony that Moos penetrated her and her previous accounts of his abuse was reasonably
explained. M.F. did not deny penetration in earlier reports; rather, she disclosed more
details of the sexual abuse as she continued through the process. During her initial reports,
M.F.’s friends and family, as well as Mlsna, did not ask M.F. to recount every detail of her
abuse; instead, they focused on providing M.F. an opportunity to be heard. For example,
M.F.’s mother testified that, during their disc ussion of the sexual abuse, she never “pried
into [M.F.] to make her open up and tell me everything that’s happened.” M.F. confirmed
that she had not shared all details of her ab use with her mother a nd testified that the
interview with Mlsna “brought up things I didn’t want to be brought up. . . . And I was
trying to do anything to avoid talking about the situation.” In addition, M.F. told the jury
how her reluctance to share details of her abuse had changed over time because, as M.F.
put it, “people were there for me and showed that they cared and that I could open up and
be more comfortable.” Moreover, Mlsna, an experienced investigator, explained that it
was common for sexually abused children and adolescents not to immediately disclose
specifics of their abuse, and that victims may disclose past abuse in pieces, rather than all
at once.

corroboration is not ma ndated by statute or the constituti on” and affirmed an assault
conviction based on the victim’s trial testimony despite her temporary pretrial recantation.
680 N.W.2d at 539.

6
As to other asserted inconsistencies between M.F.’s testimony and her prior reports,
the state presented testimony by K.B., J.M., R.S., and Mlsna demonstrating that M.F. had
made disclosures of sexual abuse similar to the testimony she gave at trial. Significantly,
while some details of M.F.’s testimony were not consistent with her prior reports (such as
the number of times M.F. was forced to touch Moos’s penis, whether Moos talked to M.F.
during the sexual abuse, and the specific ag e range when the abuse occurred), M.F.
repeatedly described the major ity of the abuse occurring in the same place (in a bed he
made for her with blankets on the living roof floor) and under a similar pattern of
circumstances (when Moos would babysit, after her brothers were put to bed, and while
M.F. was lying on the makeshift bed of blan kets on the floor watchi ng TV). M.F. also
consistently described much of Moos’s sexua l contact with her in the same way (first
removing her clothes, then lying behind her without pants with his penis exposed,
masturbating, and rubbing and sl apping his penis repeatedly against her vagina). These
repeated, detailed accounts of abuse provided a basis for the jury to find M.F.’s testimony
credible despite some inconsistencies in her prior recollections or reports.
Moos also contends that M.F.’s credibility was “impugned” when she “equivocated
on whether she remembered K.B. disclosing her own childhood abuse.” Yet M.F.’s
remarks were not inconsistent with K.B.’s testimony and do not necessarily cast doubt on
her credibility. At trial, K.B. testified that M.F. shared details about her sexual abuse after
K.B. told M.F. about her own sexual-assa ult experience. When asked about her
conversation with K.B., M.F. affirmatively recalled K.B. “mention[ing]” her prior sexual
abuse around the same time that M.F. shared her own sexual abuse. When pressed further

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on cross-examination, M.F. explained that th e girls had a “deep discussion” where they
“talked about a lot of things.”
Overall, contrary to appellant’s argumen t, the jury had a sufficient basis to
reasonably believe M.F.’s testimony. Mo os argues, however, that there was no
corroborating evidence of M.F.’s allegations of sexual contact, such as prompt reporting,
unusual displays of emotion im mediately following the abuse, physical injuries, or DNA
evidence. He also points to the fact that neither R.S. nor J.H. received any complaints from
M.F., nor did they notice any “red flags” following M.F.’s interactions with Moos. Moos
asserts that M.F.’s prior reports cannot co rroborate her testimony since M.F. changed the
details of her alleged abuse on multiple occasions.
Although corroborating evidence was unnecessa ry, we note that M.F.’s version of
events was in fact corroborated by other witnesses. Corroboration included the timeframe
within which the abuse occu rred, the opportunity for sexual abuse while Moos was
babysitting M.F., the pattern of circumstances surrounding the abuse, and M.F.’s later
demeanor toward Moos following the abuse, all of which were confirmed by other
witnesses. While Moos argues that this ev idence does not go to the actual act of sexual
abuse, he does not direct us to any authority stating th at corroborating evidence must
specifically address the elements of the crime.
In State v. Garden, this court upheld a conviction of second-degree criminal sexual
conduct over the defendant’s assertion that the 12-year-old victim gave inconsistent,
uncorroborated reports and fabricated her story. 404 N.W.2d 912, 916 (Minn. App. 1987),
review denied (Minn. June 25, 1987). M oos attempts to distinguish Garden by arguing

8
that M.F.’s testimony contained “serious defects,” rather than a “minor inconsistency,” but
he provides no authority on what constitutes a “serious defect” requiring corroboration. In
this case, despite some inconsistencies between M.F.’s prior reports and her trial testimony,
“[t]he jury apparently believed her allegations had some basis in truth.” See id. “Weighing
a witness’s credibility is for the jury, not a reviewing court.” Id. We conclude that M.F.’s
testimony was sufficient for the jury to find beyond a reas onable doubt that Moos was
guilty of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Therefore, the evidence supports Moos’s
conviction.
Affirmed.