A Pinson man has been convicted on child sex charges that involved an 8-year-old girl and happened repeatedly for almost a year beginning in 2015.
A Jefferson County jury convicted 34-year-old Romulo Velazco-Hernandez on two counts of first-degree rape, two counts of first-degree sodomy and two counts of attempted sodomy.
The trial began June 24 before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Stephen Wallace. The jury returned its guilty verdict Friday after less than three hours of deliberations.
“It has taken eight long years for this defendant to be brought to justice,’’ said Jefferson County Deputy District Attorney Tiffany Ould, who prosecuted the case with Jennifer Wilson and Jacob Powell.
“He preyed on the trust of a mother and the innocence and vulnerability of a child,’’ Ould said. “The victim will forever have to live with what this man did to her.”
The victim was eight years old when the sexual assaults began in October 2015. He was initially arrested in 2016.
Velazco-Hernandez lived with the victim, her mother and two brothers.
Ould said Velazco-Hernandez would watch the children while their mother worked the nightshift.
He would send the victim’s brothers, who were then ages 11 and 5, to bed and then lock the victim in the bedroom that he shared with her mother where Ould said he did “unspeakable things” to the young girl.
“Over less than a year, he raped and sodomized her multiple times,’’ Ould said. “Eventually, she came forward and told her mother, who called the police.”
The child underwent a medical examination, and it was discovered that she contracted an STD from the repeated assaults. The mother also tested positive for that same STD, Ould said.
Velazco-Hernandez testified at trial where Ould said he focused much of his time on his work in construction.
Also, for reasons unknown, he testified the bedroom where the victim indicated this happened was really the children’s bedroom and not the bedroom he shared with the child’s mother.
“The defendant, who is approximately 5-feet, 3-inches tall, claimed that the bedroom couldn’t have been his because he was too big for the single twin bed,’’ Ould said. ” He also could not explain why there were no children’s items in that bedroom nor could he explain the existence of all the adult items such as male and female adult clothing, medicine, lottery tickets, and bottles of alcohol, to name a few. “
His attorney, Freddy Rubio of the Rubio Law Firm, asked the defendant whether he ever sexually assaulted the child victim. Velazco-Hernandez replied, “I don’t think I would have.”
The victim, her mother and one of her siblings also took the stand.
“The consequences of his actions have finally caught up with him,’’ Ould said. “The hope is that every day he is in prison, he will be reminded that there’s no tolerance for such depraved, sinister, insidious conduct against our children.”
