The trial against Alexis David Hernández Curbelo for a sexual assault committed two years ago in Arrecife has been seen for sentencing this Monday, after just over half an hour of oral hearing. The accused, who already has four other convictions for similar crimes, has acknowledged before the First Section of the Provincial Court the facts that are imputed to him in this new case and the Prosecutor's Office has reduced the prison sentence that it was asking for him.
Initially, the accused faced a petition of 13 years in prison, 12 of them for the crime of sexual assault and another for serious resistance to authority, for assaulting one of the agents who came to arrest him. However, in her conclusions, the prosecutor Macarena Romaguera has reduced the sentence she is asking for the first crime to 9 years in prison and the sentence for the second to 4 months and 15 days.
Although she has not explained the reasons that have led to this change in the hearing, the cause could be in the confession of the accused. And it is that although an agreement of conformity has not been raised, which in trials with sentences of less than 6 years allows to avoid the trial, going directly to dictate the sentence, the agreement of the defense with the new penalties requested by the Prosecutor's Office has been evidenced. In fact, the lawyer has "adhered" to the changes introduced by the prosecutor in the indictment.
"I resisted and tried to break free as best I could"
The facts that the accused has acknowledged occurred in January 2014, on Granada Street in Arrecife. At about 7:00 p.m., Alexis David Hernández Curbelo approached a young woman who was on her way to driving school, dragged her to a lot and there put her in a kind of shed, where he undressed her, tried to penetrate her, although without success, and subjected her to another series of sexual assaults, as he himself has admitted. In his statement, the accused has limited himself to nodding when the prosecutor was repeating the facts that are included in the indictment, detailing each act that he committed with the young woman.
She, for her part, has also testified in the trial and has done so next to her mother and without being able to contain the tears. In fact, in several moments of her statement the crying has prevented her from continuing. "I resisted and tried to break free as best I could," she recalled. "He dragged me to a cabin or a house, I don't know what was there," she explained, referring to the small construction that is in that lot, and that was where the events occurred. "He tried to rape me but he couldn't," she said, later confirming that the accused introduced his fingers into her vagina and also his sexual organ into the young woman's mouth.
These details that are more difficult to relate for the victim are important in the trial, since in a sexual assault, the penalties are greater if there is any type of penetration, whether vaginal, anal or oral. For those cases, such as the one that was being judged this Monday, the penalties contemplated by the Penal Code range from 6 to 12 years in prison.
The accused, upon entering to testify the victim: "Nothing is going to happen"
In addition to having the support of her mother sitting next to her during the statement, the young woman has also had a screen that has hidden the accused while she answered the prosecutor's questions, to prevent her from having to see him. "Nothing is going to happen," Alexis David Hernández has been heard to say, when he saw that they were covering him behind that screen. "I already know that nothing is going to happen in a Court," the president of the Chamber has responded, pointing out that those were the measures that should be adopted.
On the other hand, two agents of the National Police have also been present at the hearing, who have guarded Alexis David Hernández Curbelo upon his arrival at the Courts and have taken him away at the end of the trial. And it is that when he was arrested after this last sexual assault, the accused was sent to provisional prison, where he currently remains, now waiting for the sentence of this trial to arrive. Thus, at the end of the hearing he has been driven again, handcuffed, to the Penitentiary Center of Tahíche.
A girl witnessed the events
In addition to the victim and the accused, the agents of the National Police who went to the scene and also a girl, who witnessed what happened, and her mother have also testified in the trial. In fact, it was this minor who alerted of what was happening, seeing from her window how the accused was taking the victim to the lot. "He was grabbing her and she was screaming," she recalled during the trial.
Afterwards she told her mother what she had witnessed and they called the Police, who arrived when the aggressor and the victim were still in that shed. "When he saw me he attacked me," recalled an agent, who in the trial has specified that he does claim compensation for those injuries, for the blow he received in the face.
Once they managed to reduce him, they attended to the young woman, who was "naked" and "squatting" inside the shed, and called an ambulance to take her to the hospital.
Now, two and a half years after those events, the trial has been seen for sentencing, without the accused having provided any witness or evidence in his defense. Only at the end, after having acknowledged the facts in his statement, he has intervened to make use of the last turn to speak in the trial, apologizing, stating that he knew that he had acted "badly" and attributing that attitude to alcohol.
In addition to the prison sentence, the Prosecutor's Office asks that the accused then serve another 10 years of supervised release and that a restraining order be imposed on the victim for 20 years. The prosecutor also asks for compensation of 6,000 euros for the young woman, and that the accused undergo a sexual education course.
