A Montgomery, Pennsylvania, court has at last found an illegal immigrant guilty of breaking into a Hatfield Township apartment and raping a six-year-old girl while her parents slept in another room, documents reveal.
A jury found Oscar Herrera guilty of six of the charges against him, including rape and burglary. However, the jury found him not guilty on a seventh, a misdemeanor charge of loitering and prowling.
Police arrested the 29-year-old Herrera after he broke into the apartment last November by pushing through a living room window. Police alleged he then crept into the little girl’s room and raped her in her own bed.
According to a police report, the little girl’s cries of “Stop” and “Why are you doing this?” awoke her 11-year-old brother, who ran to the girl’s stepfather to inform him of the ongoing attack.
The stepfather then reportedly ran to the room and subdued Herrera until police arrived.
“Certainly from the details provided by both children and it’s quite clear from the evidence that this individual engaged in terrible acts with the child,” said Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman during the trial.
Herrera’s lawyer insisted throughout the trial that the suspect admits to having broken into the apartment, but only lay down to sleep with the little girl and never molested her.
“Oscar Herrera is a lot of things. He is a drunkard, a burglar, a trespasser, but not a rapist,” the lawyer claimed.
The lawyer also ascribed the girl’s claims of being raped to an “easily influenced imagination.”
Herrera is a Mexican national and is reportedly in the U.S. illegally. He will be sentenced at a later date.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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