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Thursday, December 14, 2006
Immigrant sentenced to 30 years for rape

By Paul A. Long
Post staff reporter

An illegal Honduran immigrant was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday for raping and sexually assaulting the young daughter of a woman he was living with.

Angel Juarez, 33, repeatedly denied his guilt during the sentencing hearing, but his lamentations fell on deaf ears.

A jury previously had convicted Juarez of five counts of sodomy, two counts of rape and two counts of sexual abuse for his assaults against a 9-year-old girl. But the jurors had been unable to reach an agreement on a sentence, leaving the task to Special Judge Paul Rosenblum.

Rosenblum could have sentenced Juarez to life in prison.

"Without question, in the court's mind, what took place here was quite graphic," Rosenblum said. "We're talking about an extremely young girl. ... The facts are pretty egregious."

During the trial in August, the girl, now 11, gave specific descriptions of the various sex acts Juarez forced her to perform, said Boone Commonwealth Attorney Linda Tally Smith.

Juarez will not be eligible for parole until he has served 20 years behind bars. He also must undergo sexual offender therapy before being released.

Juarez already has hired attorneys to appeal his conviction.

Juarez, who speaks limited English, asked the judge through an interpreter how he could need therapy if he is not sick.

"I would like to say, in the name of Jesus Christ, that I am innocent," Juarez said in Spanish. "I have been abused by this case. I am innocent. My girlfriend knows, and everyone who knows me knows I am innocent."

Juarez then launched into a long, rambling discourse in which he invoked the name of God, said there was no proof of his guilt, questioned whether he was being singled out because of his ethnicity, and claimed to have witnessed jury tampering in the courtroom.

Rosenblum questioned him about the last claim, but lawyers on both sides said he was confused about where the jury room was, and the officer Juarez referred to was nowhere near it, much less inside, as the defendant claimed, they said.

Several times, the official court interpreter had to stop Juarez to clarify what he was saying or to ask him to repeat himself.

Juarez' attorneys, Robert Karl and Stephen Rosenbeck, asked Rosenblum for a lighter sentence. They said a report showed he is unlikely to re-offend, came to the United States to escape a life of poverty in Honduras, and despite a limited education, worked hard to support families in his native land and the United States. They said Juarez sent money to a fiancée and two children in Honduras.

In the United States, Juarez was living with his girlfriend and her two children in Burlington, Ky. The girls' cousin watched the children while Juarez and the mother worked, and sometimes stayed at the house, Smith said.

The case came to light in September 2004 when the oldest girl, who has since turned 18, discovered she was pregnant. She told her aunt - the mother of the younger girls and Juarez's live-in girlfriend - that Juarez had raped her while she was watching the children, but was not believed, Smith said.

A few months later, the girl, fearing for the safety of her cousins, Smith said, she went to police. They enlisted social workers to talk to the family.