A man faces more than a decade in prison after he kidnapped a young girl from Kennewick, Oregon, USA, nearly 14 years ago and took her to Portland.
Enrique Diaz, 35, pleaded guilty recently in Benton County Superior Court to first-degree rape after taking off with the then 12-year-old.
Deputy Prosecutor Brandon Pang told the Herald he will be asking the judge for the maximum end of the sentencing range.
Sentencing is set for July 13 and Diaz is facing about eight to 10 years in prison.
Then, once that term is finished, a Washington state prison board called the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board will decide when he can be released. The board can require up to life in prison.
Diaz was initially charged with second-degree kidnapping, but it was changed as part of the plea agreement.
In 2008, the girl’s mother told Kennewick police she planned to have her daughter live with relatives in Yakima. Instead, she ran away to Portland with Diaz, according to court records. They had sex while she was too young to give consent.
Diaz, who was living in Pasco at the time, brought the girl back to Tri-Cities and dropped her off with family members in Pasco 13 days after she disappeared.
He did not stick around, fleeing to Mexico to avoid being arrested, according to court records.
Prosecutors filed charges against him in 2008, and a warrant was issued.
The case sat dormant until last year when Diaz showed up at the U.S. border and was stopped by U.S. Border Patrol agents as he was coming back from Mexico.
He was booked into the San Diego County jail in California and later extradited to Benton County, Oregon.
Source: TCH
