Man Pleads Guilty in Jaycee Dugard-Like Case

Raul Ochoa to get 22 years in state prison
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 30, 2014 10:02 AM CST
Man Pleads Guilty in Jaycee Dugard-Like Case
Raul Ochoa to get 22 years in state prison.   (Shutterstock)

A horrifying case out of California is drawing comparisons to Jaycee Lee Dugard's story: A Richmond man who held a young girl as a sex slave for 14 years yesterday pleaded guilty to charges of forced lewd acts on a child and forcible rape in exchange for a 22-year prison sentence. The Contra Costa Times describes the girl only as a "relative," and reports that Raul Ochoa, 52, began raping her in 1998, when she was 12. The paper reports his wife and other children lived in the home; it's unclear what they knew about the abuse, which continued through 2012. Deputy DA Ryan Wagner said the wife and girl suffered "significant violence" and were very scared of him; though she had a cell phone and left the house, the girl was carefully controlled and regularly threatened by Ochoa, who home-schooled her.

Ochoa even had the girl help him build a backyard shed, telling her "it was going to be a place to watch movies together and a place for the family to hang out, but it turned into something much worse"—a spot where he would rape her repeatedly, Wagner said. The Times reports that in 2012, after her siblings convinced her to escape (the paper offers no further clarification on the siblings), the girl—now 27—tricked Ochoa into leaving the room; she then left and met a waiting car that took her to police. "What this guy did to her for that long of a period of time was as horrific as I've seen," Wagner said. "She's an extremely courageous and strong woman." Ochoa will be formally sentenced Feb. 11. (More Jaycee Lee Dugard stories.)

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