"It was a bizarre and unusual arrangement," said Jason Poppleton in court, but "there was no kidnapping."
In fact, the second-degree felony kidnapping charge was dismissed last month against Fernando Orozco-Trevizo, 32, who pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree felony assault for beating and choking the victim.
Poppleton today claimed a prosecutor's request for prison time for his client rather than immediate deportation to Mexico was improperly based on the kidnapping charge.
Third District Judge Randall Skanchy rejected the argument, sentencing Orozco-Trevizo to prison for up to five years followed by deportation. Orozco-Trevizo, who has nine aliases, was already in the U.S. illegally.
Poppleton had also argued the victim admitted during an interview with himself and prosecutor Alicia Cook that Orozco-Trevizo had at one point threw open the door and asked her to leave, but she begged him not to kick her out.
As for the engine block, "that whole ordeal was her idea," Poppleton said.
Cook said although Gonzalez did not protest at the outset of the chaining episode, there came a time when she did ask to be freed. Throwing open the door, Cook said, was "a demonstration of the power [Orozco-Trevizo] had over" his victim.
The woman "didn't have a lot of resources available to her. Orozco-Trevizo and the apartment were only things she had," Cook said.
Orozco-Trevizo bought the 20-foot dog chain Nov. 6, and began chaining the woman by the ankle while he was at work, according to charging documents. He also nailed all the windows shut in the apartment.
According to a jail booking affidavit, Orozco-Trevizo told authorities he was concerned the woman was having an affair with someone in the apartment complex.
The woman was rescued on Dec. 7, after she got the attention of a neighbor through a window, and wrote "call 911" in condensation.
