Full Opinion

Filed 11/2/26 P. v. Moawad CA2/2 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115. IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT DIVISION TWO THE PEOPLE, B349155 Plaintiff and Respondent, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. v. BA496197) EMAD MOAWAD, Defendant and Appellant. APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, George G. Lomeli, Judge. Affirmed. Vanessa Place, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant. Rob Bonta, Attorney General, Charles C. Ragland and Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorneys General, Wyatt E. Bloomfield and Chelsea Zaragoza, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent. _________________________________________ A jury convicted Emad Moawad of numerous counts for sexual misconduct he engaged in with his patients and an intern while performing his work as a dentist. He raises two related claims on appeal, one evidentiary and one instructional. Neither has merit, so we affirm. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 1. Facts Appellant was a dentist who repeatedly touched his female patients in a sexual manner—by fondling their breasts, placing his fingers in their vaginas, rubbing his genitals on their faces, necks, and shoulders, and moving his fingers around in their mouths in a sexually suggestive way—all while they sat in his dental chair for treatment. He also grabbed an intern’s hand and placed it on his genitals while she assisted him in treating a patient, holding his foot against the wheel of her chair to prevent her from rolling away. After a news report covered appellant’s assault of one victim, others came forward. 2. Procedural history Appellant was charged with 22 counts involving six victims. The charged offenses included sexual penetration by use of force (§ 289, subd. (a)(1)), sexual battery by restraint (§ 243.4, subd. (a)), sexual battery (§ 243.4, subd. (a)), and lewd act upon a child age 14 or 15 (§ 288, subd. (c)(1)).1 The first jury deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial. Several counts were dismissed for lack of a speedy trial. A second jury found appellant guilty of five counts of sexual penetration by use of force, six counts of sexual battery by restraint, and one count of 1 Undesignated statutory references are to the Penal Code. 2 sexual battery. The trial court sentenced appellant to a total of 75 years to life. DISCUSSION Appellant argues that the trial court erred in admitting the psychology expert’s testimony because sexual assault is prevalent enough that laypeople have an adequate understanding of the subject matter. He further argues that the court gave the jury internally inconsistent instructions on how it could consider the expert’s testimony. Appellant forfeited both of these claims by failing to raise them below, but we exercise our discretion to address their merits. (People v. Bryant, Smith and Wheeler (2014) 60 Cal.4th 335, 422; People v. Torres (2025) 113 Cal.App.5th 88, 92 [reaching the merits to forestall claim of ineffective assistance of counsel].) 1. The trial court did not err in admitting the expert’s testimony The jury heard testimony of a psychologist about “the psychological consequences of trauma and victimization.” She testified as a “blind expert” who knew none of “the facts or details of the case.” The expert explained aspects of “counterintuitive victim behaviors,” particularly prevalent in cases involving a “known offender,” “a person that an individual trusts” or with whom “there is an expectation of trust”: “[W]e don’t like to see people we trust, [or] people we have a reason to trust, as perpetrators [of sexual assault],” so we sometimes downplay their misconduct or question our own perceptions. Half of the women who experience sexual assault never label it, and those who do not recognize the experience as an assault do not report it to law enforcement. Even after one labels the sexual assault, “a person has to weigh the pros and cons . . . of whether or not it’s worth it 3 to go through all of the stress and trauma of reporting it to law enforcement,” particularly where the perpetrator is a known offender. Appellant urges that this testimony was unnecessary given the prevalence of sexual assault. But “ ‘[t]he jury need not be wholly ignorant of the subject matter of the opinion in order to justify its admission; if that were the test, little expert opinion testimony would ever be heard.’ ” (People v. McAlpin (1991) 53 Cal.3d 1289, 1299–1300.) Rather, expert testimony will be excluded only when it adds nothing at all to the jury’s common fund of knowledge, that is, when the subject is one of such common knowledge that ordinary people could reach a conclusion as intelligently as the witness. (Id. at p. 1300.) We disagree that the subject matter discussed by the expert was of such common knowledge that the testimony added nothing to the jury’s common fund of knowledge. In People v. Bledsoe (1984) 36 Cal.3d 236, our Supreme Court held that expert testimony on “rape trauma syndrome” could not be used to prove the rape occurred, but it nonetheless acknowledged that such testimony “may play a particularly useful role by disabusing the jury of some widely held misconceptions about rape and rape victims, so that it may evaluate the evidence free of the constraints of popular myths.” (Id. at pp. 247–248; see also People v. Lapenias (2021) 67 Cal.App.5th 162, 171 [it is “well established” that evidence of childhood sexual abuse accommodation syndrome “is relevant for the limited purpose of evaluating the credibility of an alleged child victim of sexual abuse,” even though it “is not relevant to prove the alleged sexual abuse occurred”].) 4 The expert’s testimony in this case played precisely the role Bledsoe contemplated as permissible. In cross-examining the victims, defense counsel repeatedly focused on the time that lapsed between the assaults and the victims’ reports to their family members and law enforcement. He also emphasized, in both cross-examination and closing argument, the counterintuitive conduct of some of the victims in returning to appellant’s office for dental treatment after being victimized. The expert’s testimony explained that this behavior is in fact common among victims of sexual assault. (See People v. Riggs (2008) 44 Cal.4th 248, 293 [relevance of expert testimony on battered woman syndrome “is based on the possibility that the jurors will doubt that a witness who claims to have been abused has indeed acted in the manner to which . . . she testified, and therefore the jurors might unjustifiably develop a negative view of the witness’s credibility”].) In other words, the expert’s testimony was properly employed to “neutralize[] the victim’s apparently self-impeaching behavior.” (People v. Gonzales (2017) 16 Cal.App.5th 494, 504 (Gonzales) [concerning child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome].) 2. The jury was correctly instructed on how to consider the expert’s testimony “A claim of instructional error is reviewed de novo.” (People v. Mitchell (2019) 7 Cal.5th 561, 579.) “In reviewing a claim of instructional error, the court must consider whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the trial court’s instructions caused the jury to misapply the law in violation of the Constitution.” (Ibid.) “The challenged instruction is viewed ‘in the context of the instructions as a whole and the trial record to determine whether 5 there is a reasonable likelihood the jury applied the instruction in an impermissible manner.’ ” (Ibid.) Concerning the expert’s testimony, the jury was instructed: “You have heard the testimony . . . regarding sexual assault trauma syndrome. [¶] Sexual assault trauma syndrome relates to a pattern of behavior that may be present in sexual assault cases. Testimony as to the trauma syndrome is offered only to explain certain behavior of an alleged victim of sexual assault. [¶] [The expert’s] testimony about sexual assault trauma syndrome is not evidence that the defendant committed any of the crimes charged against him or any conduct or crimes with which he was not charged. [¶] You may consider this evidence only in deciding whether or not a victim’s conduct was consistent with the conduct of someone who has been sexually assaulted, and in evaluating the believability of the alleged victim.” (Italics added.) Appellant argues the italicized sentence is inconsistent with the rest of the instruction, which correctly advises the jury it may not consider the testimony as “evidence that the defendant committed any of the crimes charged.” We disagree. The jury was correctly instructed that the expert’s testimony was not proof appellant committed the crime, but was instead limited to aiding the jury in deciding whether the victim’s behavior was consistent with that of someone who had been sexually assaulted. (See People v. Housley (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 947, 956 [requiring sua sponte instruction that the evidence is admissible only to show that the victim’s reactions are not inconsistent with having been molested, not to determine whether the victim’s molestation claim is true].) This purpose is inevitably connected to the victim’s credibility, and hence the credibility of their testimony with respect to whether the assault occurred. But that does not 6 render the instruction internally inconsistent. Indeed, appellate courts have repeatedly rejected this line of argument. (People v. Ortiz (2023) 96 Cal.App.5th 768, 816; Gonzales, supra, 16 Cal.App.5th at p. 504; People v. Lapenias, supra, 67 Cal.App.5th at pp. 175–176; People v. Munch (2020) 52 Cal.App.5th 464, 474.) Moreover, we must consider the challenged instruction in light of the context of the expert’s actual testimony. She told the jury that she was a blind expert who lacked details about the victims and facts of the case. In this context, no reasonable juror could have understood the challenged instruction as allowing consideration of the testimony for an improper purpose. DISPOSITION The judgment is affirmed. NOT TO BE PUBLISHED. LUI, P. J. We concur: CHAVEZ, J. GOORVITCH, J. 7