Cheyenne man found guilty of sexual assault of a minor

The victim in the case was a 15-year-old girl from China, who spoke little English, and Armajo was 34 years old at the time of the assault. During closing arguments, District Attorney Leigh Anne Manlove said sexual assault is a universal language.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, what country you come from or what language you speak,” Manlove said.

The case stems from an incident where Armajo and the girl, who was his stepdaughter, went out hunting together. After she killed a deer, Armajo told her they had to perform a Native American ceremony to honor the deer.

During this ceremony, the girl laid down on her back, and this is when the sexual assault occurred.

Manlove said this wasn’t a ceremony, and Armajo was just looking for the right opportunity to sexually assault the girl.

But defense attorney Brandon Booth said the cultural and language barrier is the crux of the case. He said the girl was smiling in the hunting trip video shown to the court, and her smiling doesn’t indicate she felt threatened by Armajo, like she claimed.

Manlove said she asked the girl why she smiles, and the girl told her it’s to make herself feel better when she’s feeling scared or unhappy. She said the girl felt threatened because Armajo had a gun during the hunting trip, and she was afraid of what else he might do to her.

Booth pointed out that the video of the trip shows the girl in possession of the gun, and he said it didn’t make sense for her to be afraid.

The girl told her mother what happened the night of the assault and then her school counselor the next day.

Jurors ultimately found the evidence corroborated the victim’s story, and they found Armajo guilty.

He will be sentenced at a future date, after a presentence investigation is completed. He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.