Firefighter Gets 12-Year Prison Term in Rape of Woman, 60 : Lancaster: Henry T. Benoit had been drinking before the attack on a family friend, who had thought of him as a son.

A veteran Los Angeles County firefighter-paramedic was sentenced to 12 years in state prison Thursday for raping a 60-year-old Lancaster woman who was a family friend.

“You have basically ruined this woman’s life,” Lancaster Superior Court Judge Charles Peven told Henry T. Benoit, a 17-year firefighter in the Antelope Valley. “She didn’t need you walking in there . . . to inflict all this damage on her.”

Benoit, 43, of Lancaster, had pleaded no contest July 11 to two felony counts of rape and oral copulation in exchange for prosecutors dropping 10 other counts. He resigned his job a week later as the Fire Department was moving to terminate him, fire officials said.

The incident occurred early March 15 when Benoit, off duty and after a night of drinking, went to the woman’s house thinking she might be interested in him, according to court records. After she let him in, he forced her into the bedroom and raped her.

A probation report said the victim, now 61, has had to undergo counseling and developed a heart problem after the attack, which came three months after the death of her husband. The woman had thought of Benoit as a son, according to court records. She attended Thursday’s hearing.

But she had to be helped out of the courtroom prior to sentencing when Benoit, who has a wife and two children, told the judge she had partly acquiesced to his advances. However, Benoit also blamed his drinking for impairing his judgment and said he was willing to go to prison.

Benoit could have faced 16 years in prison, but Peven, abiding by the terms of the plea bargain, sentenced him to six years in prison for each of the two felony counts. The judge cited Benoit’s long service as a firefighter in pronouncing the lighter sentence.

Several firefighters wrote letters to the judge in support of Benoit. But records showed he also had a misdemeanor conviction for false imprisonment in 1983.