XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: ecampbell@aol.com   
      
   SAN DIEGO — Two teenage boys convicted of kidnapping and raping   
   two young girls in a Rancho Peñasquitos park were sentenced   
   Thursday to terms of at least 50 years to life in prison.   
      
   Separate juries found Leonel Contreras, 18, and William Steven   
   Rodriguez, 17, guilty of multiple charges stemming from the   
   crimes committed on Sept. 3, 2011.   
      
   They were tried as adults in San Diego Superior Court.   
      
   Rodriguez received a sentence of 50 years to life and will have   
   to serve 85 percent of it. He will likely be in his late 50s   
   when he first becomes eligible for parole.   
      
   After denying a motion for a new trial, Judge Peter Deddeh   
   sentenced Contreras to 50 years to life plus eight years for   
   being armed with a knife during the rapes.   
      
   “Contreras was the shot-caller,” Deddeh said. “He likes to be   
   the guy in charge.”   
      
   The defense lawyers argued unsuccessfully for lesser sentences,   
   noting that their clients were immature at the time of the   
   crimes and neither had a history of violence.   
      
   On the day of the attack, the girls — best friends who were 15   
   and 16 years old at the time — had been attending a party in the   
   Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood. They left the gathering to take   
   a walk and sat under a tree in a park off Spindletop Road.   
      
   A short time later, the girls were accosted, led across a street   
   and up a slope to a secluded area surrounded by shrubs.   
      
   For the next 30 to 40 minutes, the girls were subjected to a   
   variety of sex acts, despite their protests and pleas for their   
   assailants to stop.   
      
   The ordeal ended when the boys heard the parents of one of the   
   victims calling the girls’ names as they searched the area.   
   Contreras and Rodriguez let the girls go, but not before   
   threatening to hurt a young relative of one of the girls if they   
   reported what had happened.   
      
   Neither of the victims was in court Thursday.   
      
   During separate sentencing hearings, Deputy District Attorney   
   Wendy Patrick read a letter from the family of one of the girls.   
   In it, the mother described the nightmares and flashbacks her   
   daughter suffered in the months after she was raped. She said   
   her daughter awoke one night thinking she was having a heart   
   attack.   
      
   But none of that stopped her from telling her story in court.   
      
   “Our daughter has chosen not to live her life as a victim,” the   
   letter read. “Both girls had the courage to face their fear and   
   testify.”   
      
   Deddeh said the girls’ testimony was difficult to forget. He   
   noted that the duration of the attack, in which both defendants   
   raped both victims, was particularly awful and shocking.   
      
   “You robbed them of their spirit,” the judge said.   
      
   Contreras and Rodriguez were convicted of a string of felony   
   crimes that, taken together, exposed them to sentences of   
   several hundred years in prison.   
      
   But because they were minors at the time of the offenses, and   
   this case did not involve a homicide, Deddeh said the law would   
   not allow him to sentence either defendant to prison terms that   
   amounted to life without parole.   
      
   http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/Jan/31/teens-park-kidnap-   
   rape/   
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)