LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – A Clark County jury acquitted a Metro police officer arrested in 2018 of a sex crime after his wife’s friend reported the man had sex with her while she was asleep in their home in the southwest valley, public records show.
Manny Gutierrez, on the job with Metro from 2014 until his arrest, was indicted in August 2018 on sexual assault charges. Vivian Solomon, longtime friends with Gutierrez’s wife – who did not testify at trial – called 911 two months prior after the three had been drinking and turned in for the night.
“I need to report a rape,” Solomon told the 911 dispatcher on June 9, 2018.
Solomon – who testified for the better part of two days of a three-day trial in October – said she woke up to Gutierrez having sex with her, screamed for her friend, and ultimately went by Uber to the hospital where a sexual assault nurse examiner tested her for signs of sexual assault. Nevada law has a sexual assault statute -NRS 200.366 – which mirrors rape statutes in other jurisdictions and carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
“I looked up I saw Manny’s face, and I realized that he was having sex with me while I was while I was asleep,” Solomon testified, saying she awoke as the alleged one-sided encounter was concluding.
Gutierrez’s attorneys – public defenders Violet Radosta and Tyler Gaston – told the jury to consider various inconsistencies in Solomon’s statements to police, at the grand jury and even at trial.
“Her story isn’t believable,” Radosta said during her closing arguments after a three-day trial. “The details of her story don’t add up.”
One of those details is the amount Solomon drank, and whether she was too drunk to withstand an assault. Solomon sent a text message after the fact to a friend saying, “I’m not that drunk,” but told a grand jury two months later that she was “heavily intoxicated.”
Ultimately, Gutierrez’s attorneys argued Solomon was trying to save face after cheating on her then-boyfriend – living back in San Diego from where Solomon flew to Las Vegas that weekend – with her best friend’s husband.
“She was ashamed if she had been caught,” Radosta argued. “Which is exactly what happened. She was caught.”
Solomon denies that logic and said the trial victimized her in the same way she says Gutierrez did.
“At the end of the day, it’s he said, she said,” Solomon told the 8 News Now Investigators in an exclusive interview after the trial. “And why was he believed over me? Why?”
Gutierrez told police the encounter was consensual, and police found relevant DNA evidence on the bedsheet that Solomon says she had pulled off the mattress and hid in the bedroom in the event she later needed proof.
Gaston, in his opening statement to the jury, said his client “admits to being a ‘cheating scumbag.’ That’s a direct quote. But denies being a rapist.”
Solomon, though, stands by her accusations.
“He should have known better,” Solomon said from her home in a state far away from both Las Vegas, where she met Manny Gutierrez for the first time, and San Diego, where she lived at the time of the alleged incident. “And on top of that, I would never, ever sleep with my best friend’s husband. Anyone who knows me would attest to that.”
But, Gutierrez’s lawyers pointed out at trial, no one did attest to that. The state called no witnesses to corroborate Solomon’s version of events and had little reinforcement for the holes in Solomon’s testimony.
“I said I thought he was guilty,” Bonnie Kelso, juror number 5 in the Gutierrez trial, told the 8 News Now Investigators. The jury – which, in its final form, consisted of seven women and five men – spent three hours deliberating before finding Gutierrez not guilty.
Kelso said the jury was split, six to six, at the outset of the deliberation. By the end, she was the only holdout for not guilty. Eventually, the jury delivered its not guilty verdict, which elicited an audible, tremendous sigh of relief from Gutierrez, who, through his attorneys, declined multiple requests for an interview with the 8 News Now Investigators.
Some jurors thought the state did not prove its case against Gutierrez, Kelso said.
“Another person just right out didn’t believe Vivian at all,” she said. “Thought she was lying to save face.”
Solomon, who said so much time had passed since Gutierrez’s arrest, felt that testifying six years later might be futile.
“I did not expect any other outcome,” she said. “I hoped, I hoped that I would be proved wrong.”
In 2018, Gutierrez was relieved of duty without pay.
After Gutierrez’s trial, Metro provided the following statement in response to questions about Gutierrez’s employment status.
“LVMPD Officer Manuel Gutierrez was hired in February 2014 and was relieved of duty without pay on June 13, 2018. His status was changed to relieved of duty with pay as of October 18, 2024. There is no specific policy on termination after an officer has been acquitted. What does happen is that the administrative investigation and process, which were suspended during the criminal case, resume.”
The Clark County District Attorney’s Office did not respond to the 8 News Now Investigators’ request for an interview.
Generally, it is the policy of 8 News Now to not identify victims of sexual assault. However, Solomon allowed 8 News Now to use her name and face for the report.
