A Somali refugee who raped two Utah women when he was 14, has been spared adult prison – despite pleas from one of his victims.
Mohammed Ali Mohammed, 20, has spent almost six years at a Salt Lake Valley juvenile detention center after pleading guilty rape, sexual assault and kidnapping charges in 2012, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
He was due to age out of the juvenile system when he turns 21 next month, leaving Judge Vernice Trease with a choice; sentence him to serve time in an adult prison for his crimes, or release him on five year’s probation. She chose the latter.
The sentence comes as a bitter blow to his victims and prosecutors who sought to keep him behind bars.
One woman, who was attacked and raped in her own Salt Lake City home by Mohammed, who then forced her at knife point to take money out at the ATM, said she is ‘terrified’ at the thought her rapist will be free to walk the streets where she lives.
Breaking down in tears in court, she told the judge: ‘He did adult crimes and should have an adult sentence to match what he did.
She says she still lives with the flashbacks and fear from that day and had asked for the strictest sentence for Mohammed.
His other victim, who he grabbed outside her home and raped her with a four-inch switchblade to her throat, was not in court but prosecutors said her life had fallen apart shortly after the assault.
Then a promising college student in 2011, prosecutor Coral Sanchez-Rose said she fell into drug use and got in trouble with the law after the assault.
‘We just lost track of her,’ Sanchez-Rose said. ‘I don’t know if she’s homeless, I don’t know where she’s staying at; we’re unable to contact her. Clearly, this has had a great impact in her life.’
But in 2012, when he was sentenced to juvenile detention, she told the court he was ‘getting away with less than he deserves.’
‘I want him in prison. … I want to have him feel what I felt.’
Source:Dailymail
