Santa Rosa man again gets 75 years in rapes

Press Democrat ^ | September 16, 2014 | BY PAUL PAYNE

[rey]

A Santa Rosa man convicted for a second time in a series of gang rapes was again sentenced Tuesday to 75 years to life in prison.

Rogelio Carlos-Zaragoza, 29, was convicted of abducting women in Santa Rosa in 2006 and 2009 and driving two of them to a remote Windsor vineyard, where he raped them with up to three other men.

He was caught with his older brother, Leonel Carlos-Zaragoza, after grabbing an 18-year-old victim at knifepoint along Dutton Avenue and getting in a chase with CHP officers on Highway 101.

Both men were convicted in 2010. The brother is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.

But Rogelio Carlos-Zaragoza was granted a new trial after an appeals court found jurors did not receive proper instructions before deliberating.

However, the second panel last month returned the same verdict. Carlos-Zaragoza was found guilty of five counts including rape in concert and kidnapping for the purposes of rape.

In handing down the punishment, Judge Rene Chouteau said he was struck by Carlos-Zaragoza’s unwillingness to accept blame for the crimes. Carlos-Zaragoza maintained the sex was consensual despite evidence the women were beaten and raped by multiple men, Chouteau said.

“I’m surprised you’re still saying it,” Chouteau told Carlos-Zaragoza through a Spanish interpreter. “What you have to realize here is that what you’ve done is a terrible thing for these three women.”

[blackdog]

While I think the sentence of 75 years of rapes is just fine, does he get breaks? Say a half hour for lunch? Does he get to choose his rapists? Do they just caste him down to the sodomite bull-queers? Do they let him sleep in a box like in Pulp Fiction?

[Oatka]

But Rogelio Carlos-Zaragoza was granted a new trial after an appeals court found jurors did not receive proper instructions before deliberating.

These people should be named. They need to be ejected. If they are electeed, voted out, if appointed, then the elected guy who appointed them should be ousted. They do this crap in the shadows and skip any public vilification, so they will do it again and again. The same with parole board members and judges who slap wrists.

[pallis]

I’m assuming that Carlos is an illegal, and that his friends are illegals also, so wouldn’t that make this more of a cultural exchange than a crime. Rape, gang rapes, brutality, Latino, macho masculinity, and all that cultural stuff is being taught to our women. In return we offer housing assistance, food stamp cards, free healthcare and education and victim status.

[muir_redwoods]

That compares well with the headline;

“Body Found in Cemetery”

[John Robinson]

FWIW, I thought what you wrote was funny, but the responses were hilarious. Yeah, headlines are written to get people to look. Don’t forget the “again” almost as if the first 75 year sentence to rape didn’t deter him (or kill him) enough.