{"id":72021,"date":"2017-03-16T16:15:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T22:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-teenager-convicted-of-child-sex-assault\/"},"modified":"2017-03-16T22:15:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T22:15:14","slug":"dolores-teenager-convicted-of-child-sex-assault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-teenager-convicted-of-child-sex-assault\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores teenager convicted of child sex assault"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=364382cf-9fe7-4fb3-9e45-98f323d8ef24&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1200\" height=\"783\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A Montezuma County judge on Wednesday convicted a 15-year-old boy of sexually assaulting his 7-year-old stepsister.<\/p>\n<p>District Court Judge Douglas Walker issued the guilty verdict in the bench trial, which started March 6. No jury was seated in the case because the defendant was a minor.<\/p>\n<p>The boy was found guilty of three juvenile felony charges of sexual assault on a child, including assault from a position of trust and assault as a pattern of abuse. His sentencing was set for May.<\/p>\n<p>The trial continued through March 9, but Walker did not issue the verdict until Wednesday, March 15. He said he had thought long and hard about the case.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI struggled with this case,\u201d the judge said. \u201cIt does not come lightly to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He came out of the case with even more respect for the job the courts ask juries to do, Walker added.<\/p>\n<p>The alleged assaults took place between March 2013 and February 2016, while the defendant\u2019s four siblings and step-siblings were living in the same Dolores apartment, according to testimony. At least five different assaults were alleged, Defense Attorney Sara Hildebrand said in her closing statement on March 9.<\/p>\n<p>In an email statement, District Attorney Will Furse said the verdict was appropriate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis has been a difficult year for both families and my heart goes out to them,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe the Judge\u2019s decision was legally sound and as this is a juvenile delinquency matter, my obligation now is to seek a sentence that serves the best interests of the juvenile \u2014 specifically, one that is rehabilitative and focused on preventing future criminality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:jacobk@the-journal.com\">jacobk@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sentence will be rehabilitative, prosecutor says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-72021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72021"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=72021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}