Convicted child rapist thirty eight year old Rene Chavez Ramos was today sentenced to twenty years in prison. This sentence was handed down by Supreme Court Justice Herbert Lord.
This comes one week after nine jurors found Chavez–Ramos, a Guatemalan guilty of carnal knowledge of a ten year old girl. He allegedly slammed her against a door, and then choked and raped her and left her unconscious.
When the child’s parent’s found their daughter, she had regained consciousness but was in severe pain. She required emergency surgery. In court today, the surgeon Dr. Milhem Ayala stated that he had never seen such a vicious attack in his life. Prosecutor Douglas Carr stated that the child has been scarred for life.
Before Justice Lord sentence Ramos he told him that he had taken into consideration Dr. Ayala’s conclusion that the ten year old’s condition was the worst he had ever treated. He also looked at the fact that the evidence showed that the child was attacked in the presence of her younger siblings, ages three and one years old.
Justice Lord told Chavez Ramos, a Guatemalan national, that although he had no previous convictions in Belize, he just could not impose the minimum sentence of 8 years because the child was able to identify him twice in an identification parade in 2006 and during the trial.
Following the sentencing just before noon today Rene Chavez Ramos told the court quote “they found me guilty, I know am innocent. I have faith that I could get through this. I am ready for what god wants of me.”
