BOISE MAN WILL SPEND AT LEAST 10 YEARS IN PRISON FOR SEX CRIMES DATING BACK TO 2005. “He has views that he has done nothing wrong, and he is not amenable to treatment, and so he is dangerous,” John Dinger, the case’s prosecutor.
February 4, 2020
Tommy Simmons
KTVB
BOISE, Idaho — A former Boise man will spend at least the next 10 years in prison for sex crimes he committed as long ago as 2005, against one of his female relatives and a young girl who lived in his neighborhood.
The Idaho Press reports Fourth District Court Judge Deborah Bail sentenced Gilberto Roman-Lopez, 47, to prison on five counts Monday afternoon — three counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child younger than 16, and two counts of sexual abuse of a minor younger than 16.
Collectively, Bail’s sentence means Roman-Lopez will spend at least a decade in prison, but could be incarcerated for up to 40 years.
Those charges stem from the frequent sexual abuse prosecutors said Roman-Lopez subjected both girls to between 2005 and 2010, when they were between the ages of 7 and 10 years old and 8 and 11 years old. One of the case’s victims was a female relative of Roman-Lopez who lived with him; the other was a friend of hers who lived nearby.
The abuse wasn’t reported to police until 2014, when the girls were teens. The younger girl, who had by then moved to Meridian, told a friend about it, and then her mother, who told police.
Although Roman-Lopez initially cooperated with police and met with detectives, he then left the area. He was arrested in March in Colorado, when police say they found him in possession of cocaine. In October, a jury convicted him of all counts he faced.
“He has views that he has done nothing wrong, and he is not amenable to treatment, and so he is dangerous,” John Dinger, the case’s prosecutor, said during Roman-Lopez’s sentencing hearing Monday.
Dinger cited the report a presentence investigator conducted on Roman-Lopez, in which Roman-Lopez implied the touching was accidental. The prosecutor called him “a real danger to the community if released.”
Monica Gray, Roman-Lopez’s attorney, said he was, in fact, open to treatment. She said while he maintains his innocence, he was open to any program or education authorities wanted to sentence him to. She also reminded Bail that Roman-Lopez had, for years, held a job and worked in the community.
Roman-Lopez told the judge, through a translator, during the hearing, “If you give me the chance to have probation, I can prove to you and to the community and to myself that I have always been a responsible and honest person."
Bail had concerns about the safety of other children if Roman-Lopez were in the community, however. She felt the case was serious because it involved more than one child victim, and an established pattern of abuse.
“However, I do think it’s important for courts to say that children deserve protection … because every decent society protects those who cannot protect themselves,” Bail said, when handing down the sentence.
https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/crime/boise-gilberto-roman-lopez-sentence/277-4bf4b06a-3899-4531-b53f-12279d82024d
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