Rapist Sentenced to 197 Years in Prison

During an emotionally charged hearing Friday, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren sentenced a 36-year-old Oxnard man to 197 years in prison for brutally raping and sexually assaulting his girlfriend.

Andres De La Torre smiled and laughed after the sentence was read, rocking in his chair slightly as Perren described him as a sexual predator whose life was out of control.

“Mr. De La Torre has an absolutely insatiable sexual appetite,” Perren said. “The court is required to make sure he doesn’t prey on anyone else.”

After handing down the first part of the sentence--two consecutive terms of 50 years to life for two of his eight charges--Perren turned to the courtroom and acknowledged that any years beyond that were “absurd.”

But because De La Torre had been convicted of six other violent sex crimes and was a repeat offender, the judge was compelled to add on an additional 97 years.

“When we start talking in numbers as grandiose as these, we sound ridiculous,” Perren said. “What we have here is life without the possibility of parole.”

The severity of the sentence was a blow for De Le Torre’s family and, surprisingly, for one of his victims, who said she wanted to drop the charges when she learned how many years in prison her former boyfriend faced.

“I know he did wrong to me,” she said outside the courtroom. “[But] I just wanted him to leave me alone. When I heard about all the years he could get, we tried to drop the charges.”

De La Torre was found guilty of eight sex crimes earlier this year for attacking his girlfriend on separate occasions in 1995. He was convicted of four rapes, four acts of forced oral copulation, and two acts of sodomy.

The jury was hung on two other counts of rape and forced oral copulation after a 17-day trial. Those charges were dismissed at the sentencing hearing.

In addition to the 1995 sexual assaults, De La Torre pleaded no contest to raping his former wife in Santa Barbara County in 1989, and had served time in prison for the crime, according to court records.

De La Torre also has 11 drunk driving convictions and has committed crimes that range from theft to spousal battery to fleeing police, Perren said.

But it was the sex attacks against his girlfriend in May and August of 1995 that were the subject of Friday’s hearing and the reason De La Torre is now expected to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

During the hearing, prosecutors said De La Torre repeatedly raped his victim, cruelly forcing her into a series of sexual acts and taking time between each one to think about the next.

“In every one, he had in front of him a person who was crying and begging him to stop,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Pachowicz said, pushing for a maximum sentence.

But De La Torre’s attorney, Barry Bernstein, argued that his client’s case was nothing more than “a dispute between a couple,” and told Perren that back-to-back life sentences would be unfair.

“This type of sentencing consists of cruel and unusual punishment,” Bernstein said.

But Pachowicz countered that De La Torre’s acts had been cruel and calculated. He pointed to one instance where De La Torre grabbed cooking oil out of a kitchen cabinet before returning to his girlfriend to sodomize her.

“The defendant has entitled himself to every minute he gets in prison,” Pachowicz said.

But outside the courtroom Friday, De La Torre’s family defended his innocence, saying he was a victim of a woman who pressed charges to get at his $57,000 bank account.

“Our personal belief was that this lady was after his money,” said Charles De La Torre, the defendant’s brother, who was not as upset about the sentence as the charges behind it.

“If my brother is truly guilty,” he said, “it is right to take him off the street.”

But Charles De La Torre said his brother is innocent, and that he plans to fight the sentence with an appeal.

“I think he is probably going to look at three to five years to fight it,” he said. “After that, I don’t know what he will do.”