Immigrant faces prison, deportation for sex with girl, 12




By Tasha Kates

Published: April 29, 2009

A 32-year-old man who claimed his sexual relationship with a then-12-year-old girl was consensual will serve prison time before facing deportation to Mexico.
Circuit Judge Edward L. Hogshire sentenced Jeremias Chagala-Mil to 30 years in prison, suspending all but six years.

In November, Chagala-Mil pleaded guilty to rape as part of a plea agreement. Authorities have said Chagala-Mil had sex with the middle-school student several times, and that he wanted to marry her. Her mother discovered the relationship in April 2008.
Defense attorney Richard Davis explained that Chagala-Mil is illiterate in his native Spanish, didn’t pass the first grade and grew up on a sugarcane farm in rural Mexico. The defendant has told authorities that age is not a factor in romantic relationships in his home country.
“He said this young girl, who was 12 at the time, looked like she was sexually mature to him,â€