Jose Rodriguez must serve a probation term after prison.
SPRINGFIELD – A 36-year-old city man was sentenced Wednesday to an 8- to 12-year state prison term after a Hampden Superior Court jury found him guilty of rape of a child.
Jose Rodriguez was sentenced to the term by Judge Constance M. Sweeney. A jury found Rodriguez guilty of four counts of rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery of a child under 14 years old.
The jury found Rodriguez innocent of one count each of rape of a child and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 years old.
After Rodriguez serves his sentence he will be on probation for five years with one of the conditions being that he has no unsupervised contact with children under 16 years old.
Assistant District Attorney Patrick S. Sabbs had told jurors in his opening there would be no forensic or scientific evidence because the two girls did not tell anyone about the rapes until 2009.
The girls said they were raped and indecently assaulted in 2005, when Rodriguez was a family acquaintance.
Defense lawyer Edward J. Abare III argued the girls made up the allegations after Rodriguez was for the most part out of their lives.
“This is a case about lies,” Abare said during the trial.
Sabbs said the jury must make its decision based on the testimony of the victims.
Rodriguez must now register as a sex offender because of the convictions.