Deno Dicamillo v. State of Arkansas

── Deno Dicamillo v. State of Arkansas ── Court: Court of Appeals of Arkansas Date: March 11, 2026 Category: General Cite as 2026 Ark. App. 176 ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS DIVISION I No. CR-25-470 Opinion Delivered March 11, 2026 DENO DICAMILLO APPEAL FROM THE WASHINGTON APPELLANT COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT [NO. 72CR-23-2115] V. HONORABLE BETH STOREY BRYAN, STATE OF ARKANSAS JUDGE APPELLEE AFFIRMED KENNETH S. HIXSON, Judge Appellant Deno Dicamillo appeals after he was convicted by a Washington County Circuit Court jury of two counts of rape and two counts of second-degree sexual assault. He was sentenced to serve an aggregate of 456 months’ incarceration. On appeal, appellant argues that the circuit court abused its discretion in admitting evidence of his alleged suicide attempt to show consciousness of guilt because it was irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial by serving no other purpose than to confuse and mislead the jury. I. Relevant Facts In March 2016, appellant began sexually assaulting and raping his then fourteen-year- old stepdaughter, Minor Victim (MV), until approximately December 2018. MV waited until 2023 to report the assaults to MV’s mother, Julie Luna, and law enforcement. Appellant was subsequently arrested on September 18, 2023, and charged by amended felony information with two counts of rape, a Class Y felony, in violation of Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-14-103(a)(4)(A) (Repl. 2013); and second-degree sexual assault, a Class B felony, in violation of Arkansas Code Annotated section 5-14-125(a)(4)(A)(iv) (Repl. 2013). While the case was pending trial and appellant was released on bond, appellant failed to appear in court for a scheduled in-court appearance on January 23, 2025. At the March 18, 2025, hearing, the circuit court ordered that the failure-to-appear charge be severed from his rape and second-degree sexual-assault charges without objection. However, the State mentioned at the hearing that there was a possibility it would seek to use appellant’s failure to appear at the January 23, 2025, hearing as evidence of his consciousness of guilt at trial. The circuit court explained that the matter could be taken up in a pretrial motion. On April 25, 2025, appellant filed a motion in limine to exclude evidence of failure to appear and improperly obtained medical records and brief in support. He specifically argued that his failure to appear was irrelevant and unduly prejudicial because it “was not willful, but rather due to serious medical issues, as documented.” He explained that the evidence of his failure to appear would “[m]islead the jury by implying consciousness of guilt, when the reality was grounded in verifiable medical necessity.” Appellant further argued that any medical records that were provided by defense counsel were inadmissible because those records had been provided by defense counsel as part of plea negotiations and not through a subpoena. The State filed its response on April 27, 2025. The State explained that the medical records showed that appellant was admitted to the hospital on January 23, 2025, after he 2 was required to be in court. According to the State, the medical records showed that appellant told the physician he “took a lot of pills at one time,” and appellant was put on suicide precautions. The State argued that it could use that evidence to show consciousness of guilt. It denied appellant’s allegations that the medical records were part of plea negotiations and that the medical records were improperly obtained. Accordingly, the Stat