A 46-year-old man has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for sexually abusing a child, the Webb County District Attorney’s Office said.
A jury sitting in the 341st District Court found Ricardo Jimenez guilty of continuous sexual abuse of a child younger than 14 years old following a three-day trial.
Jimenez also faced charges for injury to a child and terroristic threat of a family, household member. He was found not guilty on the injury to a child charge while the terroristic threat charge was dismissed, the District Attorney’s Office said.
Assistant District Attorneys Kassandra De Hoyos, Christina Rodriguez and Jesus Vigil prosecuted the case.
The case dates back to Feb. 6, 2014, when the Webb County Sheriff’s Office responded to a sexual abuse report. An investigation launched by the Sheriff’s Office, Children’s Advocacy Center and the District Attorney’s Office revealed that a child had been sexually assaulted by a man she knew.
She testified that she had been abused since she was six years old by Jimenez. In an interview with the Sheriff’s Office, Jimenez would deny the allegations.
The jury rendered their guilty verdict after six hours of deliberation on Wednesday evening. Then, the case entered the punishment phase where the jury returned at about 1 a.m. Thursday with a 50-year sentence for Jimenez to serve in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Institution Division.
“I congratulate our Criminal Investigations Division for their thorough and diligent job in working this case. I also thank the District Attorney’s Office for working alongside our office and for the successful prosecution of this child predator,” said Sheriff Martin Cuellar in a statement.
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