It took a Yolo County jury less than two hours to convict a Davis man of molesting four children in acts that prosecutors said dated back more than two decades.
Mario Roberto Rodas, 40, faces a state prison sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole in light of Thursday’s guilty verdicts on 15 felony charges, including forcible rape of a child, sexual acts with a child, lewd acts on a child, kidnapping and dissuading a witness.
Rodas is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 25 before Yolo Superior Court Judge David Reed, who presided over the two-week trial.
All four of Rodas’ victims took the witness stand during the proceedings to describe Rodas’ conduct, which Deputy District Attorney Kyle Hasapes in his opening statement to the jury called “heinous acts, serious acts, acts you want to forget about.”
The charges reflected molestations that began in 1996 and culminated this past January with the sexual assault of a 10-year-old Davis girl who testified that Rodas also held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her and her two older brothers.
Hasapes on Friday called the girl “the bravest person I have ever met, and her courage is something I have never seen and may never see again in my life. For anyone who was in the courtroom when she testified, it was impossible not to be overcome by complete sadness and anguish over the events she described.”
“It was her testimony and courage that allowed the jury to deliver such a quick verdict in this case,” Hasapes added. “(She) is my hero and I will never forget her.”
The Enterprise is not naming the children because of the nature of the charges, and because the victims were minors at the time. Some of the reported acts occurred in the Bay Area cities of Pittsburg and Oakland, where the children were living at the time.
Rodas’ attorney, Supervising Deputy Public Defender Martha Sequeira, declined to comment on the verdicts Friday.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene