The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ratified 23 years and 5 months in prison for William Rafael Escalona Mendoza, accused of raping a 63-year-old woman.
The decision of the high court is contained in judgment number 312 written by the magistrate Carmen Marisela Castro and endorsed by her colleagues in the courtroom, Elsa Gómez and Maikel Moreno.
The events occurred on July 6, 2014, as reflected by prosecutors María Alejandra Mancebo, Enrique José Montenegro Archila, María Virginia Sira Almao and Yensi Rossana Pernalete Yépez, when they requested to open a trial against Escalona Mendoza.
That day, Escalona Mendoza, who is a photographer, broke into the home of Elizabeth Rodríguez Silva (63) together with another person, located in Barquisimeto (Lara), Juan de Villegas parish.
“I was feeling a little bad with my spine and sciatic nerve, I took a pill after taking a shower and went to bed. Behind my house there was a lady’s meeting; When I woke up, it would be 4 am, I feel like they were choking me and beating me. I thought it was a nightmare, since the blows were so strong, I woke up, opened my eyes and saw William without a shirt making use of me. I screamed and he choked me. “He hit me a few times and I fainted,” the victim said as reflected in the Criminal Court ruling.
“Then, around 6, I woke up. I saw that the television was not there, nor the telephone; I couldn’t stop because I was so beaten; I grabbed the walls and got to the living room and saw that the living room door was broken and the steel sheet was open. I left desperate for what had happened, I called my daughter to an annex on the lot, I said ‘daughter, they came in and hit me,’ the woman said.
Escalona Mendoza was arrested in Valencia (Carabobo) on December 11, 2015 and charged with sexual violence and aggravated robbery.
The following year, on September 7, 2016, they ordered a trial against the accused, according to a ruling issued by the 3rd Court of Control, Hearing and Measures of the Criminal Judicial Circuit with jurisdiction over Crimes of Violence Against Women of the state of Lara, based in Barquisimeto, (Case KP01-S-2014-003801), where the preliminary hearing was held.
The trial took place between September 13, 2019 and September 24, 2019, the day on which the 1st Trial Court with Jurisdiction in Crimes of Violence Against Women of the state of Lara, based in Barquisimeto, issued a 25-year sentence. 5 months in prison.
That conviction was ratified on August 10, 2023 by Accidental Chamber No. 33 of the Court of Appeals with Jurisdiction in Matters of Crimes of Violence against Women of the Western Central Region, which included Milagros Pastora López Pereira, Orlando José Albujen Cordero and Raleymar Dayana Alvarado Yépez.
The following month, lawyer María Antonieta Amaro Virgüez, 2nd public defender, filed an appeal against the decision issued by the aforementioned Court of Appeals which, in turn, had confirmed the conviction against Escalona Mendoza.
That appeal was sent to the Criminal Chamber, where its magistrates observed “the lack of technique” to draft the document that they also found “lacking foundation.”
For these reasons, the magistrates detected that the accused “is dissatisfied with the decision handed down by the first instance”, a statement that was not intended to be presented in an appeal.
The magistrates say that the accused had another underlying intention when going to the highest court in the country, which was to “seek an assessment from the (Criminal) Court on said evidentiary facts to verify if what he alleges is true, this being not the purpose of the appeal. of cassation.”
