A 22-year-old man who pleaded guilty to a 2024 sexual assault and an unrelated child solicitation charge got six years in prison with another 10 years suspended.
Rodrigo Lopez Curiel was living in Bloomington when he was arrested and charged. An April 2026 plea agreement stemming from the rape case dismissed three other rape counts and charges of strangulation and escape.
The solicitation charge alleged Curiel sought sex from a child younger than 14. His two-and-a-half-year jail term in that case was suspended.
Monroe Circuit Judge Valeri Haughton assessed a $100 child abuse fund fee, a $200 public defender fee and $189 in court costs. She ordered Curiel to register as a sex offender as required by state law.
The judge wrote on the sentencing order that “if defendant is deported, state agrees to let him turn himself in if he returns to the U.S. on his warrant to complete his probation.”
Online jail records indicate Curiel hasn’t been transferred to the Indiana Department of Correction, the standard progression when someone is sentenced to years in prison. He remains incarcerated at the Monroe County Jail.
Just before dawn on Sept. 29, 2024, a woman reported she was attacked while walking home after buying a drink as a gas station. She told police a man grabbed her from behind, threatened her with a boxcutter and raped her in a roadside ditch near the West 17th Street roundabout.
Security camera video and images from license-plate-reading cameras in the area identified Curiel and his car. Two days after the assault, police saw him leaving his North Maple Street residence, stopped his car and arrested him. He was held in jail on $100,000 bond.
A police news release from day of Curiel’s arrest said the victim feared for her life: “The suspect was armed with a box cutter and told her multiple times that he was going to kill her.”
The solicitation charge involved social media contact with a juvenile. The escape charge was filed when a handcuffed Curiel ran from police outside the jail doors before being recaptured near City Hall.
Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington man gets prison for 2024 rape, child solicitation
Reporting by Laura Lane, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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