Calgary man handed penitentiary term for sexually abusing junior ...

Raping a 13-year-old girl he met while selling contraband to junior high school students has landed a Calgary man a 4 1/2-year prison term.

Justice Bruce Fraser on Tuesday agreed with Crown prosecutor Donna Spaner that a sentence in the mid-single-digit range was warranted for Joseph Kevin Power Romero.

The Calgary Court of Justice judge had earlier convicted Power Romero of sexually abusing the 13-year-old victim, whom he met after she contacted him requesting some of his illicit product.

Fraser said there were multiple aggravating factors that justified a sentence in excess of the two years custody plus two years of probation sought by defence lawyer Jim Edgett.

Among those was the fact Power Romero had unprotected sexual intercourse with the victim, and “the victim was only 13 years of age and the offender was 25,” Fraser said.

He also noted Power Romero showed no insight into his criminal behaviour.

“The (psychiatric) report indicates that he demonstrated a lack of remorse and that he thought he did not do anything wrong and that he is a victim,” Fraser said.

“The pre-sentence report indicates the offender and his parents do not accept responsibility for his actions, which may affect mitigating his risk in the future.”

But Fraser disagreed with Spaner’s assertion Power Romero “groomed” his victim by illegally selling booze and vaping products to her.

“The only prior contact (before the sexual assault) with the victim was acquiring and selling her illegal products she could not acquire on her own because she was a minor,” he said.

“He had a business of doing this and was selling to any minor that wanted his products. He made himself available at a junior high school where there were plenty of customers. The victim was just another customer.”

The victim had contacted Power Romero during the summer of 2020 to purchase illegal goods from him after obtaining his Snapchat username from a friend.

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They subsequently communicated on Snapchat “a couple of times” before they agreed to meet again in early September for her to make another purchase.

He picked her up down the street from her home and drove her to his parents’ residence, where he had sex with her.

Fraser dismissed Power Romero’s claim he believed she was 16 years old, and also found that the victim did not consent to sexual intercourse.

“Even if there was an air of reality to a defence of mistake of age and it was found he took all reasonable steps to determine her age, I would then go on to find on all the evidence the sex was non-consensual beyond a reasonable doubt,” Fraser said in his written decision convicting Power Romero.

KMartin@postmedia.com

Twitter: @KMartinCourts