CEDAR CITY – A 32-year-old is being held on an immigration detainer after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 7-year-old female “thousands of times.”
Victor Francisco Michel-Lara, who retains a Cedar City residence, is facing two first-degree felony charges for rape of a child.
He’s also being held on an immigration detainer for allegedly living in the U.S illegally.
According to court documents, Michel-Lara may also “be guilty of aggravated re-entry into the United States,” after he was previously deported back to Mexico following an arrest on unrelated criminal charges.
Under the U.S. code, aggravated re-entry is described as anyone who is removed from the United States following conviction of an “aggravated” felony and subsequently re-enters the country without proper documentation. The maximum penalty is 20 years in prison and is considered a felony offense.
The charging documents filed in 5th District Court Monday regarding this case state that the child told investigators in Spanish that Michel-Lara had molested her “many times in the last six months.”
She also said he had raped her “thousands of times.”
The defendant admitted to several incidents but explained to police that the assaults were unintentional and happened when he was applying lotion to her skin, the documents stated.
Describing to authorities in Spanish what occurred, Michel-Lara allegedly said the rape accidentally ensued when the suspect and the child were “rough housing” and “jumping around” following a shower on two different occasions.
Cedar City Police Officer Matt Topham wrote in his statement he believed Michel-Lara is a flight risk as the mother of the child told investigators that he had spoken to her about his “desire to travel to Washington to visit other family members.”
“In fact, she stated that he quit his job recently in order to make this trip,” Topham said. “She was not sure if he meant Washington State or Washington D.C.”
Michel-Lara was booked into the Iron County Correctional Facility Sunday with $200,000 cash-only bail required for his release pending trial.
Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @tracie_sullivan
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2017, all rights reserved.
Thank you for the honest headline. If found guilty I hope they throw the book at him with maximum sentences. If he’s guilty an oubliette is too good for this guy.
oubliette = An oubliette or bottle dungeon is a form of dungeon which is accessible only from a hatch or hole (an angstloch) in a high ceiling.
yes, but but… but “they do the jobs Americans won’t do!”
You are joking, right?
I am so sick & tired of hearing about these illegals doing the work our folks won’t do, it makes me puke.
Are you saying we should just let these illegals in our country to work and molest our children, among other things?
You are nuts!
Sarcasm dude.
Just in my opinion, dude, this story does not require sarcasm in any form. This is an extremely serious situation and it deserves serious attention. Given that, however, this is the reason inquiry was made at the beginning of the post if the comment was a joke. But, Thank You!
It aint a joke in the least. You obviously have a poor sense of the ironic.
Ed Kociela and his totalitarian pals don’t think we have enough home grown criminals and we need to import and welcome them with open arms.
They are coming to a neighborhood near you……and they will do the jobs that all Americans want to do…and there will be an interpreter in every classroom …and every desk counter person (at every office) and manager will need to be bilingual…like where I came from…and, they will only speak Spanish and drive out the other workers…..that is why came to St. George because I saw in St. George what my neighborhood was a long time ago.
Why did the author find it important to note that this evil man is “illegal”? Does that make him more of a monster that someone born here doing the same thing?
It should be noted that this piece of trash should not have been here in the first place. Why would they omit that? Unfortunately there are a lot of people just like you that work in the media, and their agenda to cover up instances like this guy’s ILLEGAL status, are a big reason why they are not trusted by a lot of folks these days.
Trash does as trash is, and the trash needs to be thrown out, you cannot recycle real trash.