On June 14, 2014, Kevin Jonas Rojano-Nieto was playing a video game in his parents' garage in Santa Ana, California. A three-year-old girl, a relative visiting the home with her mother, wandered into the garage and encountered Rojano-Nieto.
Sexually aroused by the toddler, the 20-year-old Rojano-Nieto pulled down her pants and began sodomizing her. He stopped and put his hand over the victim's mouth when the girl's mother, calling for her, jiggled the handle to the locked garage door. When the concerned mother left the house to search for her daughter at a neighbor's place, Rojano-Nieto continued the sexual assault.
When finished with the little girl, Rojano-Nieto unlocked the garage door and let her back into the house. After her daughter complained of pain shortly after the sexual attack, the mother figured out what happened and called the police.
On December 3, 2014, a jury found the defendant guilty of one count of sodomy of a child under ten and one count of lewd acts upon a child under fourteen. (Rojano-Nieto had forced the little girl to touch his penis.) The conviction meant that the guilty man would receive the mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years to life.
On April 3, 2015, Orange County Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly shocked everyone familiar with this case by ignoring California's statutory minimum punishment for this man's sex offenses by sentencing Rojano-Nieto to just ten years in prison.
The judge, perhaps aware that his ruling would create an angry backlash, carefully laid out his sentencing rationale in writing. According to this southern California judge, "The facts [of this case] don't support there was any violence or callous disregard for the victim's well-being."
No violence? Did this girl consent to being sodomized? Did she participate in her own victimization by flaunting herself in the garage?
Judge Kelly noted that the defendant had not sought out or stalked his victim. Moreover, he now felt really bad about what he had done to her.
The judge, in defending his sentence, wrote: "He [Rojano-Nieto] reacted to a sexual urge and stopped almost immediately." According to Judge Kelly, while the little girl was sodomized by a 20-year-old man, she had not been seriously injured and was therefore "headed for a normal life."
Judge Kelly had been on the bench in Orange County for fifteen years.
Not content to blame the toddler for her victimization, the judge tried to illicit sympathy for this sex offender by revealing that the offender had grown up in a "dysfunctional" family with "disruptional abuse." What did that mean? "Disruptional" isn't even a word. This upbringing, according to the judge, had made Rojano-Nieto "insecure, socially withdrawn, and extremely immature." This background had also turned him into a dangerous sexual pervert who should, for the rest of his life, never be around children.
Orange County Deputy District Attorney Tony Rackauckas responded to Judge Kelly's disturbing decision by announcing his office would appeal Rojano-Nieto's sentence. Referring to the defendant, the prosecutor said, "He's a grown man. He knowingly [actually intentionally] committed this terrible crime and should pay the price."
Public outrage over the pedophile's light sentence led to a grass roots effort to recall the judge. On December 31, 2015, the bid to have Judge Kelly removed from the bench failed when the recall supporters were unable to collect the minimum 90,829 signatures to get the issue on the ballot.
Judges with the 4th District Court of Appeals, in the spring of 2017, reversed Judge Kelly's sentence and ordered that Rojano-Neito be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Sexually aroused by the toddler, the 20-year-old Rojano-Nieto pulled down her pants and began sodomizing her. He stopped and put his hand over the victim's mouth when the girl's mother, calling for her, jiggled the handle to the locked garage door. When the concerned mother left the house to search for her daughter at a neighbor's place, Rojano-Nieto continued the sexual assault.
When finished with the little girl, Rojano-Nieto unlocked the garage door and let her back into the house. After her daughter complained of pain shortly after the sexual attack, the mother figured out what happened and called the police.
On December 3, 2014, a jury found the defendant guilty of one count of sodomy of a child under ten and one count of lewd acts upon a child under fourteen. (Rojano-Nieto had forced the little girl to touch his penis.) The conviction meant that the guilty man would receive the mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years to life.
On April 3, 2015, Orange County Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly shocked everyone familiar with this case by ignoring California's statutory minimum punishment for this man's sex offenses by sentencing Rojano-Nieto to just ten years in prison.
The judge, perhaps aware that his ruling would create an angry backlash, carefully laid out his sentencing rationale in writing. According to this southern California judge, "The facts [of this case] don't support there was any violence or callous disregard for the victim's well-being."
No violence? Did this girl consent to being sodomized? Did she participate in her own victimization by flaunting herself in the garage?
Judge Kelly noted that the defendant had not sought out or stalked his victim. Moreover, he now felt really bad about what he had done to her.
The judge, in defending his sentence, wrote: "He [Rojano-Nieto] reacted to a sexual urge and stopped almost immediately." According to Judge Kelly, while the little girl was sodomized by a 20-year-old man, she had not been seriously injured and was therefore "headed for a normal life."
Judge Kelly had been on the bench in Orange County for fifteen years.
Not content to blame the toddler for her victimization, the judge tried to illicit sympathy for this sex offender by revealing that the offender had grown up in a "dysfunctional" family with "disruptional abuse." What did that mean? "Disruptional" isn't even a word. This upbringing, according to the judge, had made Rojano-Nieto "insecure, socially withdrawn, and extremely immature." This background had also turned him into a dangerous sexual pervert who should, for the rest of his life, never be around children.
Orange County Deputy District Attorney Tony Rackauckas responded to Judge Kelly's disturbing decision by announcing his office would appeal Rojano-Nieto's sentence. Referring to the defendant, the prosecutor said, "He's a grown man. He knowingly [actually intentionally] committed this terrible crime and should pay the price."
Public outrage over the pedophile's light sentence led to a grass roots effort to recall the judge. On December 31, 2015, the bid to have Judge Kelly removed from the bench failed when the recall supporters were unable to collect the minimum 90,829 signatures to get the issue on the ballot.
Judges with the 4th District Court of Appeals, in the spring of 2017, reversed Judge Kelly's sentence and ordered that Rojano-Neito be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
I think the judge needs to be investigated.
ReplyDeleteThere is no other explanation.
How else can anyone make an excuse this mental defective!?
I was abused as a child. Many are!
We go out of our way to protect children, not harm them!!
This is way beyond abuse! Perhaps worse than murder. Because the victim will have to live with the horrific memory of what happened!
This is a danger to society and a criminal perversion that CAN'T be fixed!!
That judge is nuts to say no harm or malice? What in the world? My guess would be that the judge "understands!" this pedophile way too well and have kinship sympathy for him. Sick. --""According to this southern California judge, "The facts [of this case] don't support there was any violence or callous disregard for the victim's well-being." "" And pedophiles NEVER stop. It is their sexual orientation. This man was 20 not 5. He could not stop himself from sodomy and he will be doing it again when he is out at 31 years old.
ReplyDeleteOf course it's the victim's fault. Poor fellow, how could he resist that 3-year-old hussy. What a nice understanding judge. Obviously he has empathy because- Choke... Gag...
ReplyDelete[Sorry... I'm being sarcastic but making myself sick here]
How old is this judge?
ReplyDeleteThis is what's happening in this world. Regardless of upbringing being rough any man who is turned on sexually by a child is a pedophile. This is also gaining rapid approval in some places with encouragement from the left.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we letting our country and society cater to this evil?