A man pled guilty at the Ector County Courthouse Monday to sexually abusing his two step-daughters.
David Anthony Cortez, 34, pled guilty to two charges of sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, Monday afternoon and was sentenced to 50 years in prison with no possibility of parole.
Tony Chavez was Cortez’s court-appointed attorney, and the case was presided over in the 161st District Court of Judge John Smith.
Cortez was first charged in December of 2016 after his common-law wife reported the abuse to the Odessa Police Department. His wife said she first learned of the abuse after she and her children came back from the store and her oldest daughter asked her a question.
“Can you please tell daddy to stop doing s-e-x to me?” the woman said she asked her.
Her two daughters, ages 7 and 5 at the time of the abuse, were scared to tell her because Cortez had been threatening to hurt their mother if they said anything, she previously said.
The mother of the victims then convinced Cortez to confess to the abuse to the Odessa Police Department. Following that and an exam on the victims by a sexual nurse examiner, Cortez was charged with two counts of sexual abuse of a child in January 2017.
The mother said both victims went to therapy after the abuse and are doing well now. She said the therapist had told her Cortez had groomed her daughters, as she never saw any indication they were being abused beforehand.
“I hope he never sees the light of day again,” the mother previously said.
