A Nipomo man has been convicted of forcible rape causing great bodily injury, the District Attorney announced, and faces life in prison.
In a 9-day jury trial that concluded Nov. 3, D.A. Dan Dow’s office said they had gotten a rape conviction on Florentino Marcelino Ramonsantiago, 30, for a sexual assault on a 17-year-old girl that included an enhancement for causing “great bodily injury.” Dow explained the circumstances of the enhancement.
“This special allegation was based on the fact that his vicious assault resulted in pregnancy,” the D.A. said in a news release. “The true finding on the special allegation subjects Ramonsantiago to a sentence of 25-years to life in State Prison.”
According to the original charging documents released by the D.A., Ramonsantiago’s crime dates back to April 2021, when he “did unlawfully have and accomplished an act of sexual intercourse with a person,” the document reads, “against said person’s will by means of force, violence, duress, menace and fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury.”
The original case included an additional 17 counts against Ramonsantiago involving drugs, weapons, other participants, and “a high degree of cruelty, viciousness and callousness.”
He has a long criminal history dating back to numerous “juvenile delinquency proceedings” and prior adult convictions, “of increasing seriousness.”
The prosecutor said this was a horror movie. “The violence and trauma suffered by the young survivor,” Deputy D.A. Kristin Barnard said, “is what one would see in a horror movie. The sheer courage it took for this young lady to report and later detail this shocking crime to a jury is remarkable. We are thankful to the jury for their focused attention in this very emotional and raw case and acknowledge the impact it has had on them as individuals.”
Ramonsantiago is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 30 in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court by Judge Craig B. Van Rooyen. Ramonsantiago faces up to 25-years to life.
The case was investigated by the County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation. Dep. D.A. Barnard who is assigned to the Sexual Assault Unit prosecuted the case.
D.A.’s Office spokesman, Eric Dobroth told Estero Bay News that she went through with the pregnancy and had the baby; and mother and child are together still.
