A 44-year-old man was sentenced to 65 years in prison after a Lubbock jury found he sexually abused at least two girls multiple times for nearly a decade.
Pablo Hinojosa, who has been held at the Lubbock County Detention Center since March 14, 2023, stood before District Judge John McClendon III, who ordered him this month to serve a 40-year prison sentence before serving another 25-year sentence.
The sentence came after a five-day trial that began June 1 in the 137th District Court during which jurors heard from three women who recounted the sexual abuse they suffered at Hinojosa’s hands when they were children.
The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for about two hours before returning to the court room with a verdict finding Hinojosa guilty on one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child and a lesser included count of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Investigating reports of child abuse in Lubbock
Both offenses are first degree felonies. However, continuous sexual abuse of a child carries a punishment of 25 years to life without parole, while the aggravated sexual assault charge is punishable by five years to life in prison with parole.
He was initially charged with two counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child.
The first count alleged he sexually abused a 6-year-old girl multiple times from 2007 to 2017.
The second count alleges Hinojosa sexually abused two other children, one girl when she was 7 in 2014 and from 2018 to 2019, and the second girl when she was 6 from 2007 to 2014.
One of the women told jurors that Hinojosa would enter her bedroom at night and sexually abuse her.
She told jurors that Hinojosa turned her bedroom into a prison.
She said the abuse continued and became more heinous until she was 16 years old.
She recounted one episode of abuse during which Hinojosa took off her underwear and made her engage in a sexual act with a dog.
Two other girls told jurors Hinojosa would often catch them alone and sexually abuse them.
The abuse came to light in 2021 when one of the women told a parent about the abuse.
The women told jurors they didn’t know about each others’ abuse.
Meanwhile, jurors heard from a sexual assault nurse examiner who said she found an injury on one of the girl’s genitals that was consistent with her outcry of sexual assault.
She also found a bacterial infection on two of the girls that are common among sexually active women or victims of sexual abuse.
Hinojosa’s defense attorney argued in the guilt-innocence phase of the trial that the testimony from the girls contained too many inconsistencies and lacked details they believed were important to corroborate their testimonies.
“Details matter because they help us determine reliability,” Cynthia Mendoza told jurors.
She said she believed the inconsistencies and the missing details were enough to cast reasonable doubt over Hinojosa’s guilt.
Mendoza argued that testimony that the girls spent the night at a sleepover the day before they knew their parents planned to call the police to report the abuse, showed the possibility that the girls discussed their experiences with each other, which might have tainted their recollections in court.
“Memories can become intertwined,” she said.
She suggested that the girls might have also used the sleepover to “get their stories straight.”
However, Fossett argued to jurors that had the girl’s colluded, their testimonies in court would be more consistent.
“If you’re gonna lie you’re gonna make it worse,” she said.
Fossett argued that inconsistencies, particularly from one of the women Hinojosa frequently abused, are common in cases involving delayed outcries of daily abuse for nearly a decade because it becomes difficult to separate the details each episode of abuse, she said.
“(The abuse) happened more times than she could count,” Fossett said. “She has spent her life fighting those memories from coming into her brain. This was her weekly life.”
Determining punishment for a convicted child abuser
The evidence portion of the punishment phase of Hinojosa’s trial lasted about a half day as he had no prior convictions and a relatively clean criminal history.
However, Fossett said after the trial that the evidence against him that jurors heard in the guilt-innocence phase of the trial was enough to justify a hefty prison sentence.
She said the jury’s 40- and 25-year sentences and the court’s decision to stack them showed how serious the community takes punishing the sexual abuse of children.
“I think it shows significance from the court that the court found this to be a very serious offense and a 40-year continuous has no parole, and then the judge on his own accord, stacked that 25-year sentence for the aggravated sexual assault of a different child and so, that just shows that the court found the victim’s credible and respects the jury’s verdict in this case,” she said.
After his punishment was announced, Hinojosa sat in his seat as one of the women confronted him, telling him he not only stole her innocence, but her safety and influenced how she views the world.
She said she continues to feel uncomfortable around men, which affects the way she views men and any relationships she forms with them.
Gabriel Monte is the criminal justice reporter for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal in Texas. Have a news tip for him? Email him at gmonte@lubbockonline.com.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Judge stacks punishment for Lubbock man convicted of sexual abuse
Reporting by Gabriel Monte, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Gabriel Monte, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal | USA TODAY Network
