VAN NUYS (CNS) - A man who pleaded no contest to raping a young woman in North Hollywood was sentenced Tuesday to four years in state prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
The victim -- who was 22 at the time of the March 2019 attack -- joined Deputy District Attorney Ranna Jahanshahi in objecting to the sentence imposed by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Joseph Brandolino on Allen Dante Villarreal, now 29.
"I'm not minimizing the defendant's conduct in any way," the judge said. "He will have it on his record for the rest of his life."
Villarreal pleaded no contest July 5 to one count each of rape of an unconscious person and assault with intent to commit rape, less than four months after jurors acquitted him of charges stemming from the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl in the Topanga area in 2018.
"I was not thinking like a predator," the defendant said shortly before being sentenced. "I'm a human being. I have feelings, too ... I will never be in this situation again."
The defendant said he felt "like this is a big misunderstanding" and maintained that it was "never rape."
The victim called Villarreal a "menace to society" and said "the system has failed again and again."
"This is an injustice," she said.
The prosecutor told the judge that the defendant is an "evil predator" who she fears will "continue to prey on the most vulnerable." She and Los Angeles Police Officer Rafael Tobar vowed that authorities would continue to monitor him once he's released from custody.
Villarreal, who was arrested by Los Angeles police in May 2019, remains jailed while awaiting a hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence to require him to stand trial in a separate case in which he is charged with dissuading or intimidating a witness and other charges involving a separate potential case that the prosecutor said has not yet been filed by the District Attorney's Office.