San Jose: Ex-councilmember Omar Torres sentenced to 18 years for child sex conviction

SAN JOSE Disgraced former city councilmember Omar Torres was sentenced to years in prison Friday after his April conviction for sexually abusing a younger relative in the s a shocking revelation that surfaced after a separate shame involving Torres reputed sexual interest in minors Former San Jose City Councilmember Omar Torres is arraigned on three felony counts of child molestation Wednesday Nov at the Hall of Justice in San Jose Calif Karl Mondon Bay Area News Group Torres appeared in Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Sevely s courtroom where she declared his legal fate Torres will also be required to register as a sex offender in the state as a end of his conviction In April Torres pleaded no contest to three felony counts sodomy oral copulation and lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under the age of stemming from a Nov encounter with his younger relative Leadership stated in court documents that Torres was and the victim was at the time of the crime and the victim communicated bureaucrats that the abuse started when he was years old escalating in severity until that instance after Torres became a legal adult In a court filing prior to Torres sentencing his attorney Nelson McElmurry requested that Sevely sentence his client to five years in prison McElmurry cited a rehabilitative journey since the crime occurred that included extensive citizens amenity culminating in Torres voting process to the San Jose City Council a position he gave up last November after he was criminally charged Deputy District Attorney Jason Malinsky objected to that characterization in his own court filing arguing that Torres had shown middling remorse and benefited for a quarter-century from keeping the crime secret leading to the victim suffering an array of post-traumatic stress effects in the intervening years Malinsky requested a total of years of incarceration for Torres or three consecutive six-year sentences for the crimes to which he pleaded The road to Torres conviction first became inhabitants last October when he was detained and questioned by San Jose detectives who were initially conducting a separate assessment at his request Torres claimed that a Chicago man was extorting him under a threat to reveal a sexual tryst to his partner and colleagues But the scrutiny uncovered sexually explicit text exchanges from between Torres and the man in which they shared sexual fantasies that included Torres describing the genitalia of an autistic -year-old boy with whom he has a family-type relationship One of the messages in the midst of discussing a multi-partner sexual encounter involved Torres asking the man if U got any homies under After his police interrogation became publicly known but before the sexual abuse allegation was made Torres claimed that the messages were part of a fantasy role-play that the Chicago man then exploited Executives revealed the resulting media coverage of the embarrassment prompted his relative to statement his abuse to police on Nov That was soon followed by a police-monitored phone call between the victim and Torres who reportedly admitted to sexually abusing the victim and declared his behavior was in part a consequence of his own sexual abuse as a child Torres was arrested the next day In dueling sentencing memos filed by McElmurry and Malinsky the two attorneys sparred over the extent to which Torres had reformed himself and exactly how much culpability he was accepting when he entered his no-contest plea earlier this year McElmurry argued for a lenient sentence citing Torres youth at the time of the offenses his own severe victimization as a child his self-awareness and voluntary cessation of the conduct upon turning and his extraordinary record of rehabilitation and system over the last years He also referenced a defense-commissioned analysis by forensic psychologist Brian Abbott who wrote that the sexual abuse by Torres was not the product of inherent predation and pedophilia but rather maladaptive coping with PTSD and immature reasoning of a youth already deeply compromised by years of unresolved trauma Related Articles -year-old Santa Clara woman accused of church arson deemed unfit for trial Santa Clara man charged in East Bay highway road rage shooting Crews battle fire at Willow Glen supermarket About worth of medication stolen from Los Gatos Safeway ICE agents take detained woman to Stanford Hospital for restoration Malinsky called the overview self-serving and unsupported by evidence He outlined the serial abuse the bulk of which was not criminally charged because Torres was also a minor at the time that began in El Paso Texas and then continued in San Jose That included citing a announcement the victim gave to the county Probation Department saying it was happening so often that I knew as soon as I was alone Omar would appear numerous times it was him escorting me into his room and within a matter of just a scarce minutes he would force me into sex acts The prosecutor challenged a defense claim that Torres ended the abuse in an act of self-realization Malinsky cited the victim s claim that after a family conversation involving the abuse of a separate relative by an uncle Torres realized that he would be identified out if he continued his behavior The victim commented the encounter that fueled Torres conviction was a direct development of that realization and that Torres stated him this is going to be the last time I do this with everything that s going on I do not want to get caught Malinsky added that a Probation Department presentencing document described a troubling lack of remorse by Torres and manifested a disturbing focus on how he would be represented in the headlines rather than taking responsibility for his actions and wrote that the text-message shame countered the rehabilitation narrative by showing an ongoing sexual interest in minors This is a progressing story Check back for updates