Rapist receives 40 years in plea deal
By DEANNA BOYD
Sat, Sep. 29, 2007

STAR-TELEGRAM/TOM PENNINGTON
Jose Carrillo arrives in court Friday. FORT WORTH -- One had been asleep in her Haltom City home when she was attacked. Her children were in a nearby room.

Another woman had been waiting in her car for a friend outside an Arlington apartment complex when she was dragged from her car, forced to a nearby field and raped.

The third had just arrived home from work and was unlocking the front door of her Fort Worth apartment when she was hit from behind, shoved inside and raped.

Friday morning, the three women came together in a Tarrant County courtroom to address Jose G. Carrillo, the 32-year-old man who pleaded guilty this week to attacking them and one other woman in exchange for a 40-year prison sentence.

One after the other, the three women took a seat in front of the courtroom, looked Carrillo in the eye and explained why he was getting what he deserved.

"I will go on living, enjoying life. I'm going to enjoy my freedom. I'm going to enjoy watching my kids grow old," the Haltom City victim told Carrillo. "These are the simple things that will be taken away from you.

"It gives me great pleasure. I hope you realize in time that because of your sick, selfish, twisted, cowardly acts that you did to women, that you deserve the future that is set before you," she added.

It was for a fourth case, the January 2006 rape of an 18-year-old woman attacked as she walked to work in north Fort Worth, that Carrillo was to stand trial Oct. 8. But on Wednesday, Carrillo, who authorities say is in this country illegally, opted to seek a plea agreement with prosecutors instead.

After a day of negotiations, he pleaded guilty to three of the charges for which he'd been indicted -- two aggravated sexual assaults and a burglary of a habitation with intent to commit sexual assault. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of aggravated sexual assault for the Arlington rape. He had not been previously charged in that case because investigators had only a partial DNA profile linking him to the crime, prosecutors said.

In exchange for his plea, Carrillo was sentenced to 40 years in prison on each of the four charges. The sentences will run concurrently, and he will have to serve at least half the sentence before he can be considered for parole.

Although Carrillo would have faced life in prison had the case gone to trial, prosecutor Christy Jack said the sentence is fair.

"I knew what the victims' feelings were, and I knew they would prefer not to relive it by having to testify in trial," said Jack, who handled the cases with prosecutor Bill Vassar.

Carrillo's defense attorney, Santiago Salinas, said that before pleading guilty, his client consulted with his wife, the mother of his two young children, who has stood by him since his arrest.

"He didn't want a media circus on a daily basis, plus it seemed like there was a weight lifted off his shoulders after he plead. You could see it," Salinas said. "I don't think a jury would have given him less than 40 [years]. The state was going to ask for life."

Carrillo often changed his method of operation in the four sexual assaults. In two he wore a ski mask; in the other two he did not. In two, he used a knife while in two others he placed a rope around the women's neck.

"That's part of what makes him so dangerous," Jack said. "He's an opportunistic predator. He's a chameleon."

Handcuffed and dressed in a red Tarrant County Jail jumpsuit -- indicative of assaultive or flight-risk inmates -- Carrillo was allowed to sit as state District Judge Scott Wisch sentenced him because he had reportedly fainted during his pleading Wednesday.

A translator at his side, Carrillo listened with little expression as three of his four victims delivered victim-impact statements Friday. The fourth opted not to be in court Friday.

"I hope you get to experience everything you did to us every day you're in prison," said the Arlington victim. "It's all you deserve."

The Fort Worth victim requested that her statement not be translated for Carrillo, explaining that she found it distracting because she knew that Carrillo spoke English. Wisch explained that the translation was required by law.

" I just think that you're getting what you deserve and no prison time in the world can give me back what you've taken from me," the woman told Carrillo. "I hope you spend the rest of your life thinking about that every single day."

The Haltom City victim told Carrillo that he had robbed her of her trust in others and herself and cost her a job, her home and left her children suffering as well.

"You might think I'm just another one of your victims but I want you to know one thing, I will [not] and I never have been one of your victims," she told Carrillo. "Since that day you broke into my house in the middle of the night and you woke me up, you attacked me, you raped me, you threatened to kill my kids. ... I survived you. I'm not a victim. I'm a survivor."

dboyd@star-telegram.com
Deanna Boyd, 817-390-7655

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/251335.html