When former Pittsburgh Pirates closer Felipe Vazquez was on trial for statutory sexual assault of a teenage girl last year, the Westmoreland County judge on the case forced the 6-foot, 3-inch Venezuelan man to demonstrate the way the victim walked — including swaying his hips in front of the jury like a fashion model.

Now, Vazquez’s appellate attorney is arguing to the state Superior Court that action was so humiliating and prejudicial that his client deserves a new trial.

Attorney Jon Pushinsky told a three-judge panel of the court at oral arguments in Pittsburgh on Tuesday the demonstration was “so outrageous” that it damaged the integrity of the trial process.

“Forcing this man to imitate a woman before an all-white jury had little relevance,” Pushinsky said.

On May 20, 2021, following a four-day trial, Vazquez, 31, was found guilty of 15 counts, including statutory sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor, indecent assault of a minor, corruption of minors and sexual abuse of a child.

He was found not guilty of 10 other counts involving unlawful contact with a minor.

He was ordered to serve a two- to four-year prison sentence. He is at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill.

According to trial testimony, Vazquez had a sexual encounter with the girl in a sports car parked in front of her home in Scottdale in 2017. Then, over the next two years, they exchanged text messages, pictures and videos before his arrest in September 2019.

Vazquez has appealed his conviction on several grounds, including sufficiency of the evidence. But the legal argument Tuesday focused only on the issue of his demonstration before the jury.

During trial, Vazquez took the stand and testified the victim in the case told him she was almost 18. His defense was that he believed she was an adult. Vazquez described to the jury how the victim walked, calling it “sassy.”

On cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Jim Lazar, who also argued the appeal on Tuesday, asked Vazquez to demonstrate the walk, but the defendant balked, saying he wouldn’t do it.

“I don’t want to walk like a woman. That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m not a woman,” Vazquez said. “I’m not trying to do that stuff.”

Lazar, who didn’t like that response, asked Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Scott Mears to compel Vazquez to demonstrate for the jury.

“So what we’re doing here is we’re going to allow the witness to refuse to answer a question because he doesn’t feel comfortable,” Lazar said, according to the transcript.

Mears asked Vazquez’s defense attorney if there was an objection, and the lawyer responded, “If Mr. Lazar insists that Mr. Vazquez walk like a woman, Mr. Vazquez can do his best imitation of a woman that he would know.”

“OK, you have to comply,” the judge told the defendant.

Vazquez, wearing a blue suit, then walked in front of the jury swinging his hips.

“There is no legitimate trial interest to be served by allowing this exhibition to proceed,” Pushinsky argued to the Superior Court on Tuesday.

In his brief, Pushinsky wrote that the demonstration was “a demeaning and emasculating cross-gender performance (that) had the effect of evoking base racial stereotypes that influenced the jury’s perception of Vazquez and the evidence presented at trial.”

Superior Court Judge Judith Ference Olson asked Pushinsky, if Vazquez had been white, if it would have made a difference.

“Is this really a racial issue?” she asked. “Isn’t it more a gender issue?”

Pushinsky said it’s about both.

“Having Black men make fools of themselves in front of a white audience,” the attorney said, was equivalent to making Vazquez appear to be a “courtroom jester.

“The extent of the impact of that is so severe, it demands reversal.”

Lazar, however, told the panel the argument being made now of Vazquez’s humiliation was manufactured by the defense.

“The humiliating aspect of this trial was really on the part of the victim,” Lazar said.

But Olson pushed back.

“Why did you have him do this? Really?” she asked. “I’m just trying to figure out the purpose.”

Lazar said he asked Vazquez to demonstrate the walk because he believed he’d caught him in a lie in his testimony — about when and how he saw the victim approach his car when he met her at her home.

“This was not the spectacle it’s being made to look now,” Lazar said, telling the court the prosecution made every effort not to inject race or culture into the trial.

In addition, the prosecutor argued Vazquez’s attorney at trial never made a formal objection.

But Pushinsky said that doesn’t matter, and the trial judge should have taken action to stop the demonstration.

The judge, Pushinsky continued, had an obligation to ensure the trial proceeded without racial, ethnic or gender bias.

In Mears’ opinion on Vazquez’ appeal, he wrote that, if there had been a formal objection by defense counsel at trial, he would have stopped the demonstration because he did find it to be prejudicial.

Superior Court President Judge Emeritus John T. Bender questioned the need for the demonstration at all, instead saying the walk could have been described in words.

“It’s still an in-court demonstration,” Bender said. “I feel like they are just fraught with problems.”

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