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An El Paso man has been sentenced to 198 years in prison for sexually abusing young girls
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An El Paso man has been sentenced to 198 years in prison for sexually abusing young girls

An El Paso man has been sentenced to nearly 200 years in prison for sexually abusing two young girls, authorities said.

An El Paso jury sentenced Juan Montellano to 99 years in prison on each of two counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks said.

Montellano was also sentenced to 20 years in prison on four counts of indecency with a child involving sexual contact. He was fined $10,000 for each of the six offences.

El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks, right, shakes hands with prosecutors Eric Willard and Jonathan Amber during a press conference Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, at the Enrique Moreno County Courthouse in downtown El Paso as he received a sentence of 198 years in prison in a case of child sexual abuse.

El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks, right, shakes hands with prosecutors Eric Willard and Jonathan Amber during a press conference Friday, Nov. 15, 2024, at the Enrique Moreno County Courthouse in downtown El Paso as he received a sentence of 198 years in prison in a case of child sexual abuse.

Montellano and the victims were not strangers, but the El Paso Times is not publishing details about the relationship to avoid identifying the victims.

The jury reached guilty verdicts and handed down the sentence on Thursday, November 14.

Judge Marcos Lizarraga of the 168th District Court ordered the sentences to run consecutively, meaning Montellano will serve 198 years in prison. The sentences on the indecency with a child charges will run concurrently with one of the continuing sexual abuse charges.

“I want to point out that this is the largest sentence we’ve received in the last two years of my administration,” Hicks said. “I’m extremely proud of the extremely hard work that went into this case, but most of all, I want to point out if you victimize children in this community, the jury has spoken, the judges have spoken, you’re going to go to jail. You will spend the rest of your life in prison.”

More: An El Paso man receives 170 years in prison for continuous child sexual abuse since 2016

A jury acquitted Montellano of one count of indecency with a child involving sexual contact. The process took about two weeks.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric Willard and Jonathan Amber prosecuted the case.

Montellano’s victim was young

The sexual assaults on the girls, then ages 5 and 6, began in 2015 and continued into 2020, an indictment says.

Juan Montellano

Juan Montellano

The girls’ testimony was a key piece of evidence presented at trial, Hicks said. A child abuse expert also testified about how children present and process sexual abuse they have suffered.

“You have to understand when a child is victimized for the first time, it’s very difficult for that child to detail what happened to them, to even understand what happened to them,” Hicks said. “So when they get their first initial cry and they start talking about what happened to them. It’s very, very hard for a child to talk in any kind of detail about what happened.”

Juri, judge sending a message to child sex offenders

Montellano’s 198-year sentence is the second major victory against child sex abusers in the past two months for Texas’ 34th Judicial District, which includes El Paso, Hudspeth and Culberson counties.

Willard and Amber were prosecutors in The Edward Alvarado case. He was sentenced to 170 years in September.

Alvarado was sentenced to 75 years on one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14; 50 years for a second case of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14; and 45 years for a third count of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, court records show. The sentence was handed down on September 6.

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Lizarraga, who also presided over Alvarado’s trial, ordered the sentences to run consecutively, meaning he is serving 170 years in prison.

“These cases are messages from the judicial system,” Hicks said. “We thank Judge Lizarraga for doing the right thing and stacking the sentences, and we thank the juries for doing the right thing and sending the right message that sexual abuse of our children will not be tolerated.”

Alvarado’s victims were 4, 7 and 10 years old, Hicks said.

Aaron Martinez can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @AMartinezEPT.

This article originally appeared on the El Paso Times: An El Paso man was sentenced to 198 years in prison for child sexual abuse