Father gets 35 years in daughter's rape

April 26, 2007

Adapted from WashingtonPost.com

A father who raped his teenage daughter over several years and ordered her to throw two newborns he had fathered with her down an air shaft was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The 45-year-old man pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, aggravated assault and two counts of aggravated sexual assault.

One of the babies survived and is in foster care. The other one died after being thrown down the shaft.

"These are heinous, cruel and depraved acts committed against your own flesh and blood," said the superior court judge who imposed the maximum sentence.

According to prosecutors, the father threatened to kill the daughter and her mother if she did not throw the babies down the shaft. The daughter admitted throwing the babies down the shaft under her father's orders.

In a statement, crafted with the help of a cellmate, the man acknowledged his "atrocious crimes."

"I am totally repentant for my past actions and I do deserve to pay for this," the man wrote in the statement read in court by his attorney. But he also maintained that he did not throw the babies out the window.

DNA tests showed the man fathered both children—a girl, who died just after birth, and a boy, who survived—with his daughter, who is now 19.

The man told a psychologist that he didn't view the teenager as his daughter, but "as a person I'm in love with," adding, "I would not have sex with her if she had not seduced me."

Authorities said the man, an illegal immigrant, did not meet the girl until after she moved to the United States in 2000 as a 13-year-old. Their sexual relationship began around that time, said the prosecutor.

The daughter has pleaded guilty to reckless manslaughter and aggravated assault, and faces a maximum of seven years in prison, the prosecutor said.

Her father could be deported after completing his sentence, authorities said.

At the sentencing, the man's attorney said psychological reports indicated the father has extremely low intellectual aptitude. Authorities have described the daughter as borderline mentally retarded.

The public defender described a statement that the daughter made to authorities saying she was attracted to him, "and I began to provoke him until he finally gave in." Her statements about their relationship later became accusatory, said the public defender.

The relationship was discovered after neighbors heard a baby crying and called police in September 2005. The officers found a newborn boy at the bottom of an air shaft in their three-story apartment building.

The boy had a fractured skull but survived after landing on a pile of trash and old cigarette packages, the prosecutor said. He is now in foster care.

Further investigation turned up a mummified baby girl born in 2003, the prosecutor said.

The man lived in a small apartment with his brother, wife and two adolescent children and worked as a cook at a restaurant.

According to statements given to police, neither the brother nor the wife knew of the relationship or knew the girl had been pregnant.