IDAHO FALLS — A Shelley man has been sentenced to an 18-year prison term following two sex crime convictions.
Ruben R. Ponce, 20, appeared before District Judge Dane H. Watkins for a sentencing hearing Tuesday morning.
Ponce faced two felony charges of lewd conduct with a child under 16 for sexually abusing with two different 13-year-old victims. He pleaded guilty to the charges in March. Ponce is said to have impregnated one of the victims.
Court records show Ponce and one of the victims met on Facebook and on Sept. 11, Ponce went to the victim’s home. The victim told police that Ponce knocked on her window, and she left with him.
Ponce is then said to have driven the girl to a mobile home in Idaho Falls, where the victim said she had consensual sex with him three times, according to court documents.
Prosecutor John Dewey initially recommended Ponce serve a minimum of five years in prison with an indeterminate term of 15, totaling 20 years supervised by the Idaho Department of Correction.
Ponce has already served nine months in county jail.
“I would not say Mr. Ponce has served enough time in jail based on his pattern of violating court orders,” Dewey told the court.
Dewey then referred to the multiple times Ponce violated a no-contact order using the inmate phone system within the county jail.
Defense Attorney Jay Kohler recommended a much lesser sentence, though still agreeing to a prison term. Kohler asked Watkins to sentence Ponce to two years fixed with indeterminate, totaling six years.
“That gives Mr. Ponce enough time to complete treatment and leaves it up the the parole board to determine if he should serve more time,” Kohler said.
“He is a young man, he’s only 20 — too long of a sentence is counter-productive,” Kohler told the court. “What the state is recommending is overkill. Too long of a sentence would be discouraging.”
When Ponce was given the opportunity to speak he said, “I really don’t know, I don’t know what to say.”
“Yes, you’re going to prison,” Watkins told Ponce. “This is a horrible offense.”
Watkins then went through several pre-sentence reports about Ponce’s criminal history and read from a psycho-sexual evaluation.
“‘Mr. Ponce did not know what was wrong, said it was an accident, feels victimized by the charges against him’,” Watkins quoted the evaluator.
Watkins then sentenced Ponce to 18 years in prison, five years fixed with an indeterminate term of 13, totaling 18 years to be supervised by the Idaho Department of Correction.
Ponce will now be transferred to the Idaho State Correctional Institution in Kuna. He will face a parole board in 2021 and will be supervised until he is 38 years old.
All offenders convicted of a sex offense must first complete sex offender treatment prior to their release.
The post Shelley man sentenced to 18 years for lewd conduct with two 13-year-old girls appeared first on East Idaho News.