Raymund Clark Dominguez, 21, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for sexually molesting two brothers, 6 and 9-years-old, when he was living with the boys’ family in Burke in 2004.
“You had a responsibility to those boys who … trusted you like family,” Judge Jonathan C. Thacher said at Dominguez’s sentencing hearing Thursday, Jan. 11 in Fairfax County Circuit Court. “And you took that trust and abused that trust and turned it into something violent.”
On separate occasions from April to May 2004, Dominguez sexually assaulted the two children in their family room while watching episodes of “Fear Factor” and “American Idol.” One of the assaults took place when the boys’ parents went to see the movie, “The Passion of the Christ.”
“Horror, sadness, guilt,” are three of the emotions the mother of the victims feels, said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Marc Birnbaum. “She was asked by a family member to look out for the defendant. When she made him, in essence, a member of the family, the two boys treated him like an older brother,” Birnbaum said.
While one boy has expressed that he is “angry and sad,” another said he’s “mad, mortified and worried,” said Birnbaum. “He thought the defendant was his friend.”
“He indicated … as much as he wants to forget … if he didn’t come to court to testify, justice couldn’t be done,” said Birnbaum.
DOMINGUEZ ENLISTED in the military after committing the crimes, and admitted to the boy’s parents during a phone call taped by police that he touched the boys inappropriately.
Detectives first arrested Dominguez in July 2004.
Dominguez was to be tried in January 2005, but prosecutors set aside the case because of complications with witnesses.
His family didn’t think the charges would be brought back, said defense attorney Whitney Minter, and Dominguez ended up in the Philippines, where members of his family live.
After Fairfax detectives located Dominguez in the Philippines, he was extradited to Guam, where he was turned over to American authorities last February.
Minter said everyone involved in the case agrees Dominguez needs treatment. She said there’s a “substantial amount of mitigation,” in Dominguez’s case, including his tumultuous upbringing, which included abuse.
Minter said the victims’ mother asked for a minimum amount of jail time.
“I understand the strength of her faith which she’s had to rely on. It has given her the strength to try to forgive,” said Birnbaum, “but what he did is a horrific crime and deserves a substantial sentence.”
Thacher sentenced Dominguez to life in prison for one charge of sodomy and suspended all but five years of the sentence. He also sentenced Dominguez to 10 years on two counts of aggravated sexual battery, suspending six years on each count.
Dominguez will remain on probation for six years after he serves 13 years in prison.
“Long after we’re done today, these two young boys will remember what happened to them, what the defendant did,” Birnbaum said.