Eric John Henderson-Bey, petitioner, Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and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
A17-1183

Eric John Henderson-Bey, petitioner,
Appellant,

vs.

State of Minnesota,
Respondent.

Filed February 12, 2018
Affirmed
Bjorkman, Judge

Dakota County District Court
File No. 19HA-CR-11-1922

Zachary A. Longsdorf, Longsdorf Law Firm, PLC, Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota (for
appellant)

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

James C. Backstrom, Dakota County Attorney, Heather Pipenhagen, Assistant County
Attorney, Hastings, Minnesota (for respondent)

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
BJORKMAN, Judge
Appellant challenges the denial of his petition for postconviction relief based on the
victim’s recantation of her trial testimony. We affirm.

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FACTS
Appellant Eric Henderson-Bey was convicted after a 2012 jury trial of one count of
first-degree criminal sexual conduct and three counts of second -degree criminal sexual
conduct involving O.W., his girlfriend’s daughter, and one count of engaging in a pattern
of harassing conduct involving O.W. and her sister, C.W. The convictions were based on
repeated conduct that occurred over multiple years. On direct appeal, this court affirmed
his convictions. State v. Henderson-Bey, No. A13-0165, 2015 WL 404350, at *1 (Minn.
App. Feb. 2, 2015), review denied (Minn. June 30, 2015).
Henderson-Bey timely petitioned for postconviction relief , alleging that newly
discovered evidence supports his claim of innocence and that his trial counsel was
ineffective.1 The petition included the transcript of a July 2016 videotaped conversation
during which O.W. recanted her allegations. The district court granted an evidentiary
hearing, during which Henderson-Bey presented two witnesses: his brother, T.J .-B., and
his brother’s girlfriend, O.B. T.J .-B. testified that during a casual lunch, O.W. told them
that she had made up the allegations against Henderson -Bey. T.J.-B. denied making any
attempt to intimidate or threaten O.W. O.B. stated that she surreptitiously recorded the
conversation, because “[s]omething just told me to reco rd what was being talked about so
I did.” The district court also viewed the video.
At the end of the hearing, O.W. testified that she told T.J.-B. and O.B. she had lied
during her trial testimony, and that she had repeated her recantation to a police detective.

1 Henderson-Bey does not argue ineffective assistance of counsel in this appeal.

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But O.W. reaffirmed her trial testimony and said that she had lied when speaking to T.J.-B.,
O.B., and the detective because she was “scared,” she “thought that something was going
to go down,” and she was afraid that T.J .-B. and O.B. “were goi ng to harm me or
something.” She also reported being pressured by her mother to deny that Henderson-Bey
had abused her. O.W. acknowledged that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder before
the trial, she was on medication during the trial, and continued to take medication to treat
the disorder. She had only recently been discharged from a hospitalization when she met
with T.J.-B. and O.B., and she thought that may have prevented her from telling them the
truth. The district court denied Henderson -Bey’s postconviction petition, finding O.W.’s
testimony credible and the testimony of T.J. -B. and O.B. not credible . Henderson -Bey
appeals.
D E C I S I O N
We review a postconviction court’s decision for an abuse of discretion. Lussier v.
State, 821 N.W.2d 581, 588 (Minn. 2012). We “will not reverse an order unless the
postconviction court exercised its discretion in an arbitrary or capricious manner, based its
ruling on an erroneous view of the law, or made clearly erroneous factual findings.”
Matakis v. State, 862 N.W.2d 33, 36 (Minn. 2015) (quotation omitted).
When a defendant alleges that a witness offered false trial testimony, a new trial
may be granted if (1) the postconviction court is “reasonably well satisfied” that a material
witness’s testimony was false; (2) without the testimony, a jury “might” have reached a
different conclusion; and (3) the defendant was surprised by the false testimony or did not
learn of its falsity until after trial. State v. Nicks , 831 N .W.2d 493, 511 (Minn. 2013)

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(quotation omitted) (applying test from Larrison v. United States , 24 F.2d 82, 87 -88 (7th
Cir. 1928)).
Henderson-Bey argues that the district court abused its discretion by denying a new
trial because the July 2016 videotape is reliable evidence concerning O.W.’s allegations.
The state counters that the district court did not clearly err in finding O.W.’s trial testimony
was truthful. We agree with the state.
The district court 2 found that (1) O.W. was frightened by T.J .-B. an d O.B., and
feared that “they would harm her if she refused to say that her trial testimony was untrue”;
(2) the video showed that O.W. became increasingly upset during the conversation and
demanded to be taken home; ( 3) T.J.-B. “continually pressed [O.W.] to talk about the
familial sexual abuse loudly in the public restaurant”; and (4) O.W. became more upset as
T.J.-B. “berated her regarding [ Henderson-Bey’s] actions, and attempted to justify
[Henderson-Bey’s] behavior, which a jury has deemed criminal.” And the district court
expressly found that T.J.-B. and O.B. were not credible witnesses and O.W.’s trial
testimony was credible, and her “believable” testimony at the evidentiary hearing affirmed
her trial testimony. Because record evidence supports the se findings, we discern no clear
error.
Henderson-Bey does not challenge the district court’s application of the law,
arguing that the first prong of the Larrison test is dispositive. Based on its factual
determinations, the district court concluded that it was “not reasonably well -satisfied that

2The same judge presided over both the trial and the postconviction evidentiary hearing.

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the [trial] testimony given by [O.W.], a material witness, was false” and “[O.W.’s]
recantation did not have sufficient indicia of trustworthiness because the video
documenting the recantation involved intimidation, and the testimony of the two witnesses
who observed the recantation was not credible.” See Martin v. State , 825 N.W.2d 734,
740-41 (Minn. 2013) (stating that “a court cannot be reasonably certain the recantation is
genuine unless i t contains sufficient indicia of trustworthiness” (quotation omitted)). In
short, the district court properly applied the law concerning witness recantation to the
unique facts of this case.
The district court applied the correct legal standard, and the record evidence
supports the court’s factual findings. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did
not abuse its discretion by denying Henderson-Bey’s postconviction petition.3
Affirmed.

3 Henderson-Bey argues that this court should consider whether a less deferential standard
of review should be applied. Generally, this court, “as an error correcting court, is without
authority to change the law.” Lake George Park, L.L.C. v. IBM Mid-Am. Emps. Fed. Credit
Union, 576 N.W.2d 463, 466 (Minn. App. 1998), review denied (Minn. June 17, 1998).