A 22-year-old illegal immigrant wanted to be returned to Mexico but he's going to prison instead.
Such is the fate of Juan Arteaga-Ponce, a man convicted of lewd conduct with a minor child for having sex last fall with a 14-year-old Carey girl.
Sentence was pronounced Thursday morning in Blaine County 5th District Court by Judge Robert J. Elgee, who sentenced the defendant to four years in prison, with two of them to be served before Arteaga-Ponce is eligible for parole.
The sentence was shorter than the eight years requested by the Blaine County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, but longer than the year in jail or time-served sentence requested by public defender Christopher Simms.
Arteaga-Ponce was arrested last Nov. 4 by the Blaine County Sheriff's Office after a Carey family complained that the defendant had been involved sexually with the girl for about a month. Arteaga-Ponce was originally charged with two counts of rape and two counts of lewd conduct with a minor child. He pleaded guilty in May to one of the lewd conduct charges in exchange for having the other three counts dismissed.
The defendant, who speaks little English and needed the assistance of a court interpreter, testified on his own behalf at Thursday's hearing.
Arteaga-Ponce said he has been in the United States for about six years, that he left Mexico for a "better life for me and my family," has never before been in trouble with the law and would like to be released from custody so that he can return to Mexico to resume his education.
"In Mexico it's not a crime to be with a young girl under age," Arteaga-Ponce testified through the interpreter. "I would like for you to release me soon. I would like to say I'm sorry for the hurt that I have caused."
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Matt Fredback said Arteaga-Ponce has shown little or no remorse for his actions and deserved to be sent to prison.
"The child didn't speak Spanish; the man didn't speak English," Fredback said. "The day after he met this girl he drove the victim into the mountains and they had sex in every way they could think of. He had sex with her in a number of different ways on a number of different occasions. It doesn't look to me that Mr. Ponce understands what he did is wrong. In the United States, we have laws to protect children from this kind of conduct."
Simms told the court that his client is a victim of "cultural disorientation" and should not be sent to prison for "what his own culture doesn't recognize as criminal at all."
Elgee characterized the defendant's situation as a "trap that many Latino boys find them themselves into."
The judge further ordered that Arteaga-Ponce register as a sex offender and that he pay a $2,500 civil fine to the victim.
The girl's mother told the Idaho Mountain Express following the hearing that she is satisfied with the sentence.
Juan Arteaga-Ponce
