http://nctimes.com/articles/2008/09/...ba007cc94c.txt

Victim tells rapist he is 'a sadistic abusing pervert'
By DAN SIMMONS - Staff Writer | Thursday, September 4, 2008 7:10 PM PDT ∞

Rape victim Tammy Chavez, right, holds up a catheter as she speaks at the sentencing of convicted rapist Victor Navarro to show what she must use for the rest of her life because of the brutal attack. Rape crisis victim advocate Lupe Calzado stands with her. Navarro was sentenced Thursday to eight years in jail. (Photo by Jamie Scott Lytle - Staff Photographer)

ESCONDIDO ---- Six years after a rape that left some of her internal organs permanently damaged, Tammy Chavez called her attacker "a sadistic abusing pervert" at his sentencing Thursday afternoon.

"The physical pain you have caused has lasted this last six years and will never go away," she said in a voice that occasionally cracked with emotion and at times rose to a scream. "I have been in my own prison."

The man, Victor Navarro, pleaded guilty in late July to sodomy and rape using a foreign object.

The prolonged attack left Chavez "the most severely injured person I have ever heard of who lived," said Chuck Ryder, a marriage and family counselor who has worked extensively with Chavez and her husband.

Navarro was sentenced Thursday by Judge Aaron H. Katz to eight years in prison followed by deportation, said Deputy District Attorney Natalie Villaflor.

The addition of the sodomy charge allowed prosecutors to exceed the six-year maximum for convicted rapists without prior felony convictions. He will get credit for 5 1/2 months served since his arrest in April, Katz said.

Chavez said she wanted to give a statement to reclaim some of the dignity she said was stolen from her that night. She was accompanied by a victim's advocate.

In an approximately 10-minute speech, the woman graphically described her injuries as Navarro, sitting in a glass-enclosed defendant box in a blue jail uniform, scoffed at her words ---- read to him through an interpreter ---- with his head down.

Navarro, a resident of Mexico who rented a room from Chavez in her Mark Avenue home, raped Chavez the morning of June 17, 2002, according to police files.

Chavez told police she didn't scream for help because she feared the man would harm her daughter and 10-month-old granddaughter sleeping in an adjacent room. The rape began at about 2:30 that morning and ended about 4 a.m. when an alarm clock sounded and the attacker fled, Chavez told police.

The attack has left Chavez severely crippled, with major internal damage.

"Her insides are ruined," Ryder said.

Escondido police stopped investigating the case because of what they described as insufficient evidence until Chavez issued a new statement in 2005 with more thorough details of the rape. It came after extensive therapy sessions to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. The therapy sessions, Chavez said, freed new memories and strengthened her conviction to seek justice against Navarro.

Then, police obtained DNA samples from Navarro collected after a May 22, 2004, drunken-driving arrest in Orange County. They matched DNA found in sperm on Chavez's underwear the night of the attack, according to police files.

The match "corroborates the events that (Chavez) has reported since the rape occurred," wrote now-retired Detective Ron Shankles in the arrest warrant, dated June 22, 2006.

In her statement Thursday, Chavez praised Shankles, saying he always believed her and pursued the case vigorously.

"He got the evidence to get this monster," Chavez said. "My appreciation cannot be expressed in words."

She explained the "small amount of time" Navarro will serve compared with her lifetime of suffering, but said she understood Villaflor was working under sentencing guidelines that, she said, are too light.

"I think anybody who rapes somebody should get more than eight years," she said.

Katz commented briefly after Chavez's statement, saying there was "not much more to say" after the victim's powerful statement.

"You certainly deserve every day of the eight-year sentence," he told Navarro.