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Saturday, November 21, 2009
Ex-Guard Gets 18 Years for Rape
By Lloyd Jojola
Journal Staff Writer
Former prison guard Anthony Townes maintained his innocence to the end — an end that came not long after the clock struck noon Friday when state District Judge Ross Sanchez handed Townes a multiyear sentence for raping four female inmates at the Camino Nuevo prison in 2007.
"You're a predator in every sense of the word, Townes," one of the victims told him in court Friday. "You used your knowledge, your position as an officer to take and strip from me what you wanted. You raped me. You put your hands on me like I was a piece of trash. You made me feel embarrassed for what was going on, and it was you, you were the one who should have felt ashamed.
"But your cockiness and your above-the-law-attitude, it blinded you and it forever will blind you to the pain and the hurt and the damage you did to me. You had no right, none, to do the things that you did to me."
As part of a September plea agreement, Sanchez handed Townes a 36-year prison sentence, suspending 18 years. Townes, 35, will also receive probation after he is paroled and will have to register as a convicted sex offender. Townes will have to serve at least 85 percent of the 18 years.
Under the agreement, Townes pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal sexual penetration and four counts of false imprisonment.
"It really was kind of a mystery case. How somebody with a beautiful background, perfect childhood, fabulous military career, (advanced education) and background as an EMT, how this could happen," said Sandy Barnhart Y Chavez, Townes' defense attorney. "And I know he denied it to the end, which is unfortunate, but I can only explain it by the fact that he was put into an extraordinary situation."
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