Attorney General Paxton’s Criminal Prosecutions Division has obtained a 25-year prison sentence for a child sex offender in Wharton, Texas. Assistant Attorney General Geoff Barr prosecuted the case on behalf of the Office of the Attorney General and the State of Texas.
Artemio Rodriguez, Jr. pleaded “guilty” to one count of Indecency with a Child by Contact and pleaded “true” to a prior robbery conviction, which enhanced the offense to a first-degree felony. Rodriguez sexually exploited a six-year-old child in 2019. Rodriguez, who was 43 years old and a friend of the child’s mother, was babysitting the child while the mother was at work. He told the child not to tell her mother. But soon after, the child revealed the abuse to her friend’s mother, who reported it.
The State offered and agreed to the prison sentence in exchange for Rodriguez’s plea of guilty and waiver of his right to a jury trial. By avoiding a jury trial, the child was spared from having to testify in detail about the crime that occurred over three years ago.
This resolution struck a balance between two important goals—punishing a heinous crime while protecting the child from reliving her trauma by testifying at trial.