Yesterday, I wrote about discovering that the pedophile who abused me has died. At the bottom of that post, there’s a section called “Related” where my blog pulls things I’ve written in the same vein and I saw this one:

In that post, I used an example story where a 42 year-old man was arrested for kidnapping a 15 year-old girl in 2004, repeatedly raping her, and continuing to hold her captive for 10 years. When the abuse started, she was 14 years old and he was her mother’s boyfriend. He coerced her to marry him in 2007 and she had his child. Eventually, she reached out to her family on Facebook who urged her to contact the police, and the bastard was arrested.

Since that post is 8 years old now, I thought I’d follow up and see what happened. Surely, it’s made its way through the justice system by now….

Well, I’m wishing I hadn’t, because now I am angry. From an article I found on the story written in 2016:

A Bell Gardens man was sentenced to four years and four months in state prison Friday for sexually assaulting his friend’s 15 year-old daughter for 10 years.

Isidro Medrano Garcia, 42, was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life. A jury found him guilty on March 4 on three felony counts of lewd acts on a minor. He was found not guilty of kidnapping the girl to commit a sex crime.

During Garcia’s trial, the now-26-year-old woman testified that Garcia began touching her inappropriately in her family home at age 14. When she wanted to tell her mother, he threatened to call immigration authorities.

She told authorities that Garcia had kidnapped her in 2004 and forced her to marry him and have his child.

But Garcia said the teen willingly ran away with him to escape an unhappy home. He said she fabricated the abduction story after reconnecting with her family on Facebook.

Neighbors and friends were shocked when Garcia was arrested and said he doted on his wife, loved his daughter and hosted frequent parties at the family’s home in Bell Gardens.

During the trial, Garcia’s defense attorney showed photos of the couple smiling at their wedding and daughter’s birthday parties. He told jurors that Garcia worked hard at jobs as a janitor and machine operator to support his family and took them to Disneyland and Las Vegas.

Garcia acknowledged having an inappropriate sexual relationship during his trial.

This is basically a case of he said, she said. She said he threatened to call Immigration Services on her family since they were in the US illegally, so she felt she couldn’t contact the police. She said he controlled her by saying her family did not want her and were not looking for her. It was a lie; they filed a missing person report in 2004. She said she tried to run away twice but Garcia caught her and beat her. He said that she made it all up.

He was found not guilty of kidnapping, because he claimed that she went with him willingly. Even if that’s true, why the hell would it matter? She was 15 years old, and therefore, a minor and unable to give consent by law. Even if she willingly ran away with him, which she claims she didn’t, she was a minor and he most definitely was not. That makes him guilty of kidnapping regardless of whether she was willing or not. Even if she was 17 years and 364 days old, it would be kidnapping.

The singular count of rape of a minor was dismissed, because the idiotic jury was deadlocked on it. He was convicted on only 3 counts of lewd acts on a minor. Why only 3? He started abusing her at 14 years old when they both still lived with her family, then he forced her to live with him for 10 years after that. I’m sure he sexually assaulted her more than 3 times in 11 years.

So, a pedophile who admitted to having sexual relations with a minor was convicted of that crime. He could have faced up to 19 years in prison if convicted on all charges. Instead, he got 4 years and 4 months. That’s 6 years less than she was forced to live with him.

That’s appalling. He took 10 years of her life from her. He forced her to marry him and have a child. He repeatedly threatened her and ultimately brainwashed her. He was sentenced to only 4 years and 4 months for that crime. That is not justice.

A Santa Ana Police Department news release in May 2014 alleged that “Even with the opportunity to escape, after years of physical and mental abuse, the victim saw no way out of her situation and lived a life with Garcia under sustained physical and mental abuse.”

I’ve been there myself with a pedophile and a domestic abuser, though not both in the same person like this asshole. I know how it goes. She thought she had no options. He threatened her family and convinced her she was unloved by anyone but him. It’s easier to go along with it than fight, particularly after 10 years of abuse. The jury and the judge and the district attorney clearly have never experienced anything close to that themselves. If they had, they’d know it is never just as easy as just walking away, especially since there was a child involved.

Ah, but the justice system might say, he may not serve much prison time, but he has to register as a sex offender for life… OK, let’s see what the sex offender registry has to say then.

“Year of Last Conviction: 2016”
“Year of Last Release: 2016”

Um, what does that mean? Did he serve any prison time at all? As I calculate it, 4 years and 4 months cannot happen within the same calendar year, which means that he probably never went to prison and he basically got away with it. Please explain.

In some ways, this story makes me a little glad that I never got “justice” for what happened to me. Had I pursued legal justice where I’d have to testify in front of the world and the abuser in a court of law, and then the sentence came back as 4 years and 4 months, I wouldn’t have survived that. That judgment would have made me so angry that I couldn’t live with it. 4 years and 4 months is almost worse than never having gotten justice at all.