Dorchester man gets 10-to-12 years for raping girl
A Dorchester man will spend 10 to 12 years in state prison for raping a household member at least three times when she was between 8 and 12 years old in the mid-1990s.
Judge Sarah Weyland Ellis on Wednesday morning sentenced Edgard Andre to 10 to 12 years each for two counts of rape of a child, which will be served concurrently. She imposed an additional three years of probation for the third child rape count. The trial began on Nov. 16 and jurors on Tuesday convicted him on all three child rape counts.
“There’s no way to quantify the toll that his actions have taken on me,” said the victim, now 40 years old, at the sentencing hearing. “While I have throughout the years excelled academically and even professionally, it has not come without years and years of tears.
“As I recall the events that happened to me during my childhood, being molested by the defendant has made me very reluctant to trust new people after meeting them out of fear that they will cause harm to me in some way or might have some ill intent.”
Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden said that the victim “deserves special credit, because it was her determination, her factual assurance and her compelling testimony that made the verdict possible.”
The victim first disclosed to her family doctor in 1995 that Andre, in a relationship with her mom, had raped her at least three times in their home in the first block of Codman Hill Avenue in Dorchester, according to the Commonwealth’s Statement of the Case filed Sept. 30, 2016.
The rapes occurred when the young girl was left alone with Andre, according to the statement of the case document.
When the family doctor filed the mandated report on what the girl had said, her mother agreed to work with the Department of Children and Families — then known as the Department of Social Services — to devise a plan to keep the two apart by living in separate apartments within the home.
“However, given the fact that the child’s mother and defendant had a toddler together and because she needed his financial contribution, and was ashamed, mother did not pursue the criminal matter,” the document states.
Instead, the women at 32 years old walked into the Suffolk Family Justice Center in 2015 to report the rapes and the legal process began, finally leading to Andre’s conviction based on her testimony.
“The fact that 12 strangers members of the jury heard my story and what happened to me and felt enough empathy for me to obtain the justice that I thought as a child means so much to me and is an important step in my healing,” the woman said in her hearing statement.
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/PDWI2gN
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