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Man gets life in prison for abuse 62-year-old sentenced to life without parole in sexual abuse of child

Waco Tribune-Herald - 5/4/2017

A 62-year-old man will spend the rest of his life in prison after his conviction Wednesday for sexually abusing a young girl.

Jurors in Waco's 54th State District Court deliberated just 15 minutes before returning maximum sentences for Juan Rodriguez Guajardo, a diabetic who has lost sight in his right eye and who requires four-hour dialysis treatments three times a week.

The jury deliberated 35 minutes before convicting Guajardo of continuous sexual abuse of a young child and indecency with a child by contact. He has two prior DWI convictions.

In punishment testimony, Guajardo's son testified that any prison term, including the minimum of 25 years on the first count, amounts to a death sentence for his father, who also suffers from a heart ailment and high blood pressure.

But prosecutors Gabrielle Massey and Christi Hunting Horse told jurors Guajardo deserves a stiff penalty because he abused the trust of the young girl, who he knew had been sexually abused previously by another family member when she was 8.

"This defendant knew she was vulnerable," Massey said in jury summations. "He knew she had been through something like this before and he took advantage of that, and that makes this all so much worse."

The jury convicted Guajardo of sexually abusing the 9-year-old girl from January 2013 to June 2013. The girl is a family member of the woman Guajardo was dating.

The girl testified that Guajardo touched her inappropriately on numerous occasions while she slept in the same bed with him, her grandmother and 5-year-old brother.

The girl's brother told the jury that he was playing with Legos and looked up and saw Guajardo touching the girl on her outer thigh and hip. He said that although he was 5, he sensed something was amiss, adding that the incident made him mad and sad.

Defense attorney Phil Martinez suggested during jury summations Wednesday that the girl might have mixed up the previous abuse she suffered at the hands of her uncle with realistic dreams that Guajardo also abused her.

"We are disappointed in the outcome and the verdict," Martinez said after the trial. "It really is a death sentence because I don't see him living in prison much more than a few years."

A Waco police detective testified that the girl's uncle fled to Mexico before she could execute an arrest warrant on him.

Unusual delays

The trial experienced some unusual delays that stretched it into a second week. The jury was selected April 24, but no testimony was heard until Monday morning because of delays caused by Guajardo's medical treatments and the arrest last week of a juror. The juror was charged in Bell County with possession of a controlled substance and possession of marijuana.

Judge Matt Johnson spoke to the juror while she was still in jail last week, and she assured him that she wanted to continue to serve on the jury. She was released on bond the night of April 27 and was elected presiding juror by her fellow jurors Wednesday after the panel started its deliberations.

Martinez told the jury Guajardo likely will be transferred to a prison medical facility because of his condition and asked jurors for minimum sentences.

Hunting Horse reminded the jury that Guajardo was undergoing dialysis when he committed the offenses and said he deserves a lengthy term despite his condition because he abused the young girl's trust and that of her family.