Thread: Illegal Alien Gets 27 Years in Sexual Assault of NJ Woman (update)

Posted on Fri, Jul. 10, 2009

Man gets 27 years in sexual assault of NJ woman

The Associated Press

MORRISTOWN, N.J. - A pizza cook who chased down, beat and raped a woman who was walking home from a birthday party in northern New Jersey has been sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Eric C. Rangel, who attacked the woman in April 2007 on a street in Parsippany, must serve 85 percent of the sentence imposed Friday.

A Morris County jury convicted him in March on sexual assault charges. A tape of the frantic 911 call the victim made from her cell phone as she was being chased was a key piece of evidence.

Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto ruled that the 22-year-old Rangel, who is in the country illegally, must register as a convicted sex offender under Megan's Law if he is not deported to his native Mexico after his release.

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/n ... woman.html

Had we deported him sooner this wouldnt have happened. Its the U S Government's fault that this crime was able to take cplace as they are not protecting us.

This would be a perfect test case for Chris Kobach to sue the pizza place - but for employment enabling him to stalk and rape, he would be in Mexico. We had a McDonald's employee who killed 3 people (two children) in a car accident while driving drunk. I believe the McDonald's should be held responsible.

Dec. 13, 2013
Peggy Wright
dailyrecord.com


Eric Rangel was re-sentenced in Morris County Superior Court for the sexual assault of a Parsippany woman he chased down a street and tackled while she was frantically making a 911 call on her cell phone. / Bob Karp/Staff photo

An undocumented immigrant who chased, beat and raped a teenager in a patch of bushes in Parsippany in 2007 was re-sentenced Friday from 27 years to 17 years in prison, a reduction forced by a state Supreme Court decision.

Defense lawyer Neill Hamilton asked Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto, sitting in Morristown, to re-sentence Eric Clemente Rangel to as little as six to eight years in prison but the judge imposed a 17-year stint, with the mandate that Rangel serve 85 percent of the term before parole consideration. However, he faces deportation to his native country upon release.

“I hope he rots and dies in the worst way possible,” the victim had stated in a letter read in court by Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Meg Rodriguez, who opposed Hamilton’s arguments that sentences on some of the charges be merged or run concurrently instead of consecutively.

A Morris County jury in 2009 found Rangel, a now 27-year-old who uses the alias “Hugo Olivares,” guilty of sexually assaulting and beating an 18-year-old woman he chased and tackled on North Beverwyck Road around 3 a.m. on April 22, 2007.

The victim was walking home from a backyard barbecue and Rangel cat-called and then chased her as she frantically made a 911 call from her cell phone. A resident heard her screams for help and called police, who caught Rangel as he was sexually assaulting the woman in a clump of bushes.

The state’s highest court this past April threw out convictions on two of the most serious charges for which Rangel was found guilty. The 2009 jury had found Rangel guilty of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault, both second-degree crimes; and obstruction. He was sentenced to 27 years.

Hamilton had argued -- unsuccessfully at the time -- that state statute language elevates sexual assault to the first-degree crime of aggravated sexual assault if, in part, it occurs in the course of an “aggravated assault on another.” Such a scenario might involve a woman being forced to submit to a sexual assault if confronted with another person being harmed unless she submitted. But in the Rangel case, there was one victim and not “another“ on whom an assault occurred

Agreeing with Hamilton’s interpretation, both the Appellate Division of Superior Court and the Supreme Court agreed that the phrase “on another” refers to a person separate from one victim. The decision meant that Rangel’s convictions for aggravated sexual assault and attempted aggravated sexual assault were dismissed. He was resentenced Friday on remaining counts of second-degree sexual assault, second-degree aggravated assault, and fourth-degree obstruction.

The judge went through a lengthy analysis of whether the surviving counts should be run consecutively or concurrently and agreed with Rodriguez that the separate acts of violence -- aggravated assault and sexual assault -- deserved consecutive sentences.

Ahto also considered the person Rangel is today in prison, with Hamilton noting that Rangel has received his general equivalency diploma and learned a building trade of how to frame a house.

“I’m pleasantly surprised how well he’s done down at state prison,” Hamilton said. Rodriguez said the GED and house framing skills were admirable but she questioned whether Rangel was at risk to re-offend since he hasn’t taken classes to address alcohol or substance abuse though he claimed the 2007 assault occurred during an alcoholic “blackout.”

Rangel declined to speak Friday in court and had told authorities he didn’t remember the event because he was in a blackout. He had admitted to regular use of alcohol, cocaine and marijuana and to stealing from friends if he couldn’t afford the habits on his own. The judge said that Rangel has not expressed remorse and even tried to put the blame on the victim, who he said “courageously resisted” until she stopped fighting because she feared Rangel would kill her.

“He doesn’t show any remorse even today, even today,” the judge said. Rangel will get credit toward the 17-year sentence -- which he is expected to appeal -- for the nearly seven years he already has spent in custody since his arrest.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/2...EWS/312130033/