Six accused of sexual exploitation of minor face requests for up to 10.5 years in prison in Ciudad Real
The provincial prosecutor's office is seeking harsh sentences against half a dozen defendants for prostituting a 14-year-old girl through cash payments and drugs.
Six accused of sexual exploitation of minor face requests for up to 10.5 years in prison in Ciudad Real
The Public Prosecutor's office in Ciudad Real province has sought harsh sentences against half a dozen defendants for prostituting a fourteen-year-old girl through cash payments and drugs. The requests reach ten years and six months in prison, complemented by financial compensation ranging from six thousand to twenty thousand euros for moral and psychological damages.
According to the accusation, the victim, then a fourteen-year-old adolescent, met one of the defendants in the capital of the province in October 2022. From that relationship arose intimate encounters which, over time, developed into an exploitation scheme. The alleged ringleader is said to have proposed to the young woman to maintain relations with third parties in exchange for money or substances, an offer she is said to have partially accepted, although on certain occasions she did not receive the agreed compensation.
The indictment attributes to the main defendant the role of mediator: he organised the encounters, set the conditions and coordinated the meetings, obtaining benefit in the form of money, drugs or other valuable objects. The remaining five defendants are said to have participated in said encounters or facilitated their realisation. Several of them maintained relations with the minor between the final months of 2022 and the first months of 2023 in different locations in the town.
The facts were classified as sexual assaults on a minor under sixteen years old and prostitution of a minor, some with continuous modality. The defendants—three with Dominican passports, two Colombian and one Bolivian—will be tried in the provincial court.
The proceedings entered their oral phase in April but had to be interrupted due to illness of a family member of one of the lawyers. The hearing will resume on Wednesday, 1 July.
In addition to custodial sentences, the accusation requests restraining orders keeping the defendants away from the victim, a ban on contact by any means and mandatory attendance at sexual education workshops.
Source: ABC
Source: ABC