A Santa Barbara jury took just 18 minutes to come to a guilty verdict for the 34-year-old Carpinteria man who impregnated his 13-year-old stepdaughter in 2012. Charged with forcible rape and aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of 14 with a special allegation of inflicting great bodily injury, Santos Guevara could become the first child molester in the county to go to prison for life without the possibility of parole.
Prosecuting attorney Benjamin Ladinig argued Guevara shattered the childhood of his stepdaughter by sexually abusing her when she was 13. Twenty years her senior, Guevara forcibly raped her after pulling her pants down several times as she pulled them back up, Ladinig argued on Friday during closing arguments. “When a little 13-year-old girl pulls up her pants to keep her step-daddy from raping her, she is indicating no,” he charged. “Her first act of intimacy on Earth was by her stepfather putting his tongue down her throat,” Ladinig went on.
In early 2013, the girl went to the hospital complaining of chest pains, and doctors discovered that she was 17 weeks pregnant. Two days later, the girl had an abortion and stayed home from school for several weeks. These events constitute the special allegation, Ladinig contended, adding that pregnancy — though not typically considered such — is great bodily injury when it’s caused by rape.