Q COSTA RICA — A man with the last names Carranza Vega was sentenced to 36 years in prison after being found guilty of two counts of rape and one count of sexual abuse against two minors.
The San Carlos Prosecutor’s Office reported that the sentence was handed down after prosecutors demonstrated during the trial the defendant’s responsibility for a series of sexual assaults that occurred between 2006 and 2011 in the community of San Joaquín de Cutris, in the canton of San Carlos, Alajuela province.
He took advantage of living with the victims
According to the indictment filed by the San Carlos Prosecutor’s Office, Carranza Vega lived in the same house as the family of the two minor victims, a situation that allowed him constant access to them and enabled him to take advantage of moments when no other adults were present to commit the sexual assaults.
During the trial, the Public Prosecutor’s Office successfully proved that the now-convicted man acted when he was not seen by others and that he used his proximity to the victims to perpetrate the crimes.
The investigation established that the assaults occurred repeatedly between 2006 and 2011.
The evidence presented during the trial was deemed sufficient by the Court to find the defendant criminally responsible for two counts of rape and one count of sexual abuse.
One of the elements presented during the trial was that, after committing the assaults, the accused intimidated the victims, threatening the minors to keep them silent, to prevent them from revealing what had happened, a situation that caused the events to remain hidden for several years.
It wasn’t until 2023 that both were able to bring the case to the attention of the judicial authorities, allowing the opening of the criminal investigation that culminated in the conviction.
Authorities and specialists in victim support have repeatedly pointed out that these types of situations are frequent in sexual crimes committed against minors, where fear, manipulation, and a relationship of trust or closeness with the aggressor often delay reporting for years.
He will remain in pretrial detention
Until the sentence becomes final and the corresponding procedural stages are resolved, the convicted man must remain in pretrial detention to guarantee the proper development of the judicial process and the execution of the sentence once the ruling is final.
Authorities reiterated that sexual crimes against minors constitute one of the most serious forms of violence and that the judicial system maintains mechanisms to investigate these types of cases even when complaints are filed several years after the events occurred.