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   From: no-reparations-assholes@naacp.org   
      
   https://s.hdnux.com/photos/65/22/37/13969352/4/rawImage.jpg   
   Joan Toribio   
      
   LITCHFIELD >> As Joan Toribio was handcuffed and led out of a courtroom at the   
   Litchfield Judicial District courthouse Tuesday morning to begin a nine-month   
   prison sentence for second-degree sexual assault, his family burst into tears.   
      
   Toribio’s sentencing is a final chapter in a case that drew national   
   headlines after he and a football teammate were arrested for sexually   
   assaulting two separate 13-year-old girls on the same February night earlier   
   this year. After Toribio and his    
   friend, Edgar Gonzalez, were arrested, fellow athletes and classmates took to   
   social media to bully the victims, calling them “whores” and   
   “snitches.”   
      
   The night before the sentencing, a porch light at the former Torrington High   
   School football player’s home was off. Except for the blue glare of a   
   television lighting the window sill, there were no signs of activity. Inside,   
   Toribio clung to his final    
   moments of freedom.   
      
   A woman who identified herself as Toribio’s sister pulled up to the family   
   home, a modest apartment complex in Torrington on Highland Avenue, and an   
   unassuming epicenter for a rape case that garnered national attention, drew   
   comparisons to a similar    
   one in Steubenville, Ohio, and forced school administrators to confront   
   whether its school was doing something to foster a “culture of rape” and   
   “male privilege.”   
      
   Lost in the fervor, friends and Toribio’s attorney said, is the identity of   
   a 18-year-old rising football star, who they say will likely be remembered for   
   a “juvenile” mistake.   
      
   On Tuesday, before a mostly empty courtroom at Litchfield Superior Court,   
   Judge John Danaher handed down Toribio’s sentence: He’ll spend nine months   
   in jail and serve 10 years of probation - but won’t have to register as a   
   sex offender - after    
   pleading guilty to second-degree sexual assault in the February rape of a   
   13-year-old girl. Nine months is the mandatory minimum for second-degree   
   sexual assault.   
      
   Toribio’s teammate, Edgar Gonzalez, is already serving a six-year sentence   
   for second-degree sexual assault and second-degree robbery. He was also   
   required to register as a sex offender for 10 years.   
      
   Toribio, who stood before the judge in a black sweatshirt and dark blue jeans,   
   didn’t say much when addressing the court, but acknowledged his decision to   
   engage in what prosecuting State’s Attorney Terri Sonnemann called a   
   “consensual” sexual    
   encounter with an underage girl was “wrong.”   
      
   Toribio’s Torrington-based attorney, Charles Brower, told the court his   
   client was a “very nice kid” who did something “juvenile and immature.”   
      
   Danaher said he hopes Toribio can salvage his life after he’s released.   
      
   “You are the beneficiary of the victims whose parents aren’t out for   
   blood,” he said. “Sometimes what people do goes beyond a mistake and   
   becomes a crime, and that’s where you are today.”   
      
   Members of the 13-year-old victim’s family elected not to attend Tuesday’s   
   sentencing, with Sonnemann speaking on their behalf. She condemned Toribio’s   
   decision to have at least two sexual encounters with a girl he knew was   
   underage.   
      
   The state’s age of consent is 16, falling outside the state’s Romeo and   
   Juliet provision, which allows for sexual relationships if the participants   
   aren’t more than three years apart, because of the five-year age gap between   
   Toribio and the victim.   
      
      
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