Man initially accused of rape is released after pleading guilty to disturbing the peace

The Superior Court has accepted the plea agreement of a 19-year-old man who was initially accused of rape but whose charges were later amended and reduced to just disturbing the peace.

Following a change of plea hearing yesterday, John Timothy Vergara, 19, was absolved of all sexually related charges initially filed against him, and was sentenced to a six-month imprisonment term for disturbing the peace after offering a guilty plea. Of the six months, Vergara was only ordered to serve four days and was given credit for the four days he had already served.

Vergara was placed on two years of probation following his hearing yesterday. He was also allowed to continue attending church services as long as he does not engage with or have contact with the victim or the victim’s family while at these activities.

During the hearing, Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph Camacho raised concerns about the plea agreement, including whether the family of the 13-year-old was on board with the decision, why there was no mandatory sentence for Vergara since there was language in the plea agreement that insinuated sexual abuse, and why Vergara was not required to register as a sex offender.

However, both the defense, led by Office of the Public Defender’s JP Nogues, and the prosecution, led by Office of the Attorney General’s James Houston, informed the court that the victim and her mother agreed with the terms of the plea agreement and both wanted the case closed as quickly as possible so they could move on with their lives.

The victim and her mother did not want the case to go to trial as it will only further traumatize the victim and her family.

To limit the court to consider only the crime of disturbing the peace, Houston and Nogues agreed to an amendment to the charges to drop all the serious sexual crimes in order to push forward with the change of plea hearing.

In a statement from Chief Prosecutor Chester Hinds, he said the OAG is glad that there has been a resolution in this case for the sake of the victim and her family.

“Our office takes the concerns of the court seriously. The judge expressed concern about whether the victim’s parents were informed. The Victims Bill of Rights as outlined in 9 CMC § 9104, requires that the Attorney General’s Office make efforts to ‘see that victims of crime are accorded rights.’ Two of those enumerated rights are that the victim has a right to ‘confer with the attorney for the government in their case,’ and the ‘right to information about the conviction, sentencing, imprisonment, and release of the offender.’ Naturally that includes plea agreements. The practice of the Attorney General’s Office – Criminal Division is to provide victims with those rights. As a result, the Attorney General’s Office regularly speaks to the victims and the parents of minor victims regarding plea agreements,” he said.

Chester explained that in this case the Commonwealth through its victims’ advocate and the assistant attorney general did in fact speak with both the victim and her mother regarding the plea agreement.

“The father is not available. As noted by the court, both the victim and her mother assented to the plea agreement. The judge also raised a valid concern regarding registration requirements. As noted above through consultation with the victim and mother It was determined that in this specific case, with its specific circumstances, amending the information and plea agreement was the best course of action to find balance between the concerns expressed by the court and the interests of the victim,” he said.