Man convicted in 2021 gang rape gets 45 years in prison
Jul. 18—A 26-year-old man was sentenced Thursday to 45 years in prison in the brutal kidnapping and gang rape of a Santa Fe woman in 2021.
Owin Erlandi Lemus Cardona and three other men were accused of forcing the woman, who is deaf, into their car and taking turns raping her as they drove around the city after a night of dancing at a local nightclub.
Cardona was the driver and the only defendant to stand trial in connection with the case.
A jury deliberated for less than an hour in January before convicting him after a weeklong trial, finding him guilty of kidnapping, two counts of criminal sexual penetration and conspiracy.
State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington granted prosecutor Haley Murphy's request to hand Cardona the maximum sentence on each charge at Thursday's sentencing hearing, giving him 18 years for the kidnapping count and nine years each for the other three charges.
The crimes are classified as serious violent offenses, meaning the "good time" credit he is eligible to earn is capped at 15% of his sentence; he must serve 85% of it, or more than 38 years.
Cardona will also be deported to his native Guatemala when he's finished serving his sentence, Ellington said.
Murphy said several factors warranted the maximum sentence for Cardona, including "the brutality and depravity of the crime," and his "lack of remorse and lack of accountability."
Two of Cardona's co-defendants took plea deals in the case, Murphy noted — saving judicial resources and sparing the victim further trauma. She said they earned severely reduced sentences.
Oscar Rene Juarez Lopez, 46, the oldest of the four men, pleaded guilty in May to rape and kidnapping, and received a 20-year sentence under his deal with prosecutors.
Another defendant in the case, Edin Eduardo Climaco Velis, 35, agreed to plead guilty in 2023 to criminal sexual penetration and conspiracy. Under the terms of his deal with the state, Velis could be sentenced to 18 years but will have his sentence capped at 13 years initially, in consideration of his cooperation in the cases against his co-defendants.
Velis' sentence was delayed until his co-defendants' cases were resolved. He's scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday.
Josue Donaldo Leon Cartagena, 21, the suspected ringleader in the incident, is still at large and believed to be living in Guatemala, where all of the suspects are from, according to court records and statements made at a previous hearing.
Police have said the case was blown open when they tracked down Cartagena in Guatemala, and he admitted to the rapes in a phone interview and provided information that helped police identify the three other suspects.
Authorities have since lost touch with him, the judge said Thursday.
Cardona's public defender, Jennifer Burrill, had asked the court to sentence him to 18 years, arguing he should not be punished more harshly for having exercised his constitutional right to a jury trial.
Cardona addressed the court through a Spanish language interpreter. He made a statement that was then translated by a sign language interpreter for the victim.
"I want to say I'm deeply sorry. This was never planned," he said. "I'm not a bad person. I'm not a criminal."
Ellington disputed Cardona's assessment of himself, noting the jury came "to the opposite conclusion."
"If this wasn't planned, then these were crimes of opportunity in which you happily participated in despite the knowledge of what was going on in the backseat with the other three individuals as they were brutalizing [the victim]. You continued to drive around town to allow it to happen," the judge said.
"She was trapped in the vehicle, and even after being aware of all that she had been through, you then decided it was your opportunity to get whatever perverse sexual gratification you did by also taking advantage of her," the judge said.
