LITCHFIELD – An 18-year-old from Torrington pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree sexual assault and second-degree robbery and faces up to seven years in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 6.
Edgar Gonzalez initially faced two counts of risk of injury to a minor and second-degree sexual assault for the sexual encounter with a 13-year-old girl in February. The case drew some attention in the Torrington area because some friends of Gonzalez taunted the victim on social media.
At the time of the sexual assault, Gonzalez had a first-degree robbery charge pending against him for another incident.
The plea agreement offered by prosecutor Terri Sonnemann resolves both cases short of trial and spares the victim from having to testify.
Charges are still pending against Joan Toribio, also 18, who is charged with sexually assaulting another 13-year-old the same night in the same apartment at a complex on Torrington’s west side. Toribio is due back in court June 19.
The plea agreement calls for a 10-year prison sentence, suspended after Gonzalez serves between three and seven years, and then 10 years of probation. His lawyer, Dennis Bradley of Bridgeport, will argue for a lesser sentence.
Sonnemann said the sexual assault was not a forcible rape, as defined in state law, but that a medical examination of the 13-year-old girl found that she suffered internal injuries.
Arrest warrants describe a night of drinking, marijuana smoking and, ultimately, sexual contact between the 18-year-old boys and the girls.
One of the girls was sleeping over at the other’s house. About 3 a.m. Feb. 10, she would later tell police, they sneaked out of the house and went to Toribio’s family’s apartment. Gonzalez was there with Toribio, according to the warrant, and Toribio’s mother was asleep at the time.
Gonzalez and Toribio admitted to Torrington Det. Kevin Tieman, in separate interviews, that they had sex with the girls and that they now know it was wrong, the warrant says. They insisted the sexual contact was consensual, but they were charged with second-degree sexual assault because, under Connecticut law, a 13-year-old girl cannot consent to sexual contact.
One of the 13-year-olds, according to the arrest warrant, said she told Gonzalez “no,” but he insisted and had intercourse with her. She also said she smoked marijuana and drank vodka with Gonzalez. She said that she felt “fuzzy” from the alcohol at the time of the encounter.
The girl also told police Gonzalez told her she needed a shot of alcohol, and he pulled her head back and poured it into her mouth, the warrant states.
The girl told a forensic interviewer at Torrington’s Center for Youth and Families that at one point during the sexual contact, Gonzalez held her arm behind her back. The girl said “that she verbally told Gonzalez that she did not want to have sex, but as a result of the marijuana, alcohol and ‘entire situation,’ vaginal sex just happened anyway,” according to the arrest warrant.
Gonzalez told the detective that, at one point, the girl said, “I don’t know. … I don’t want to do this,” and they stopped, according to the warrant.
The second girl said she did not smoke marijuana or drink vodka. She was reluctant to talk to police about what happened and at one point said, “I ruined his life,” the warrant states.
Police learned of the incident after one of the girls’ relatives told the girl’s mother about what had happened. The mother then contacted police.
By David Owens, Hartford Courant