An Odessa man who lied about his age to a 16-year-old Odessa girl in order to carry on a months-long sexual relationship with her was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday in the 161st Ector County District Court.
Although sexual assault of a child normally carries a prison sentence of two to 20 years in prison, prosecutors sought two life sentences because Joel John Valdez, 27, was on probation at the time of the offense in another rape case involving another 16-year-old child.
Theoretically, the jury could have determined the earlier rape conviction was “not true” and chosen to give Valdez a prison sentence of two to 20 years on each count.
Retired Judge Tryon Lewis opted to run both life sentences concurrently, but consecutive to the 20-year sentence he imposed in the earlier rape case. The earliest Valdez could be released from prison is 36 years from now, if the parole board opts to give him parole in both cases at the earliest moment possible. Under Texas law, defendants have to serve 50% of their sentence or 30 years, whichever is higher, before becoming eligible for parole. The 36-year time frame also includes roughly four years he’s been in custody awaiting trial.
On Monday, the girl testified she was a high school freshman when she met Valdez via Snapchat in August 2019. She said they had sex for the first time the day before she turned 16 and at the time, she believed he was 18. She testified that over the course of the next several months, she would sneak him into her bedroom when her mother was asleep and he hung out there while her mother was at work and she was at school.
The girl told jurors they had unprotected sex nearly every day, even after she found out he was actually a 24-year-old convicted sex offender because she believed herself in love with him. She only broke up with him after discovering he was cheating on her with another 16-year-old.
It took the jurors less than 15 minutes to convict Valdez Tuesday.
During closing arguments for the punishment phase Wednesday, prosecutors Rikki Earnest and Kortney Williams reminded the jurors of everything they’ve learned about Valdez throughout the course of the three-day trial.
According to witnesses and court documents, jurors learned Valdez was sexually abused by an uncle who later went to prison for the offense.
Valdez committed his first sexual assault of a child at the age of 10. He was placed on two years’ probation in November 2006 and ordered to participate in sex offender treatment, but one year later was placed in a secured facility because he was having issues at school and at home. He was again ordered to participate in sex offender treatment.
Valdez was released on probation after seven months in the facility and was convicted of indecency with a child in 2009. He was ordered to serve at least two years in juvenile prison, but his stay was extended to four years. He was released from the prison, sent to a halfway house and then released in May 2013 at the age of 17.
Three months later, a 16-year-old girl accused Valdez of holding her down while his brother, her boyfriend, raped her, on her backyard trampoline. He was sentenced to 10 years’ deferred adjudication in that case in May 2016 and the events of the current case occurred October 2019 through the spring of 2020 when he was 24.
The girl in the 2013 case testified Tuesday that Valdez actually raped her, too.
Jurors also heard from the girl Valdez was cheating on the 2019 victim with. Like the 2019 victim, she, too, met Valdez on social media when she was 16. He gave her a false name and said he was 18. She testified that, like the 2019 victim, they had unprotected sex multiple times.
In discussing all of Valdez’s crimes, Williams told jurors, “those aren’t decisions that happened to him, those are decisions he’s made.”
She also told jurors their sentence wasn’t just about Valdez, but it was about the victims and sending them a message about their worth.
During his closing argument, defense attorney Phillip Wildman said he doesn’t know what to do about Valdez and suggested society doesn’t either. He urged them to take their time and “make sure of everything” because no matter how they feel about his client, he’s still a human being, he said.
“Y’all are the fact finders,” he reminded them.
During their deliberations, the jury asked for and received the court documents prosecutors said proved Valdez’s conviction in the 2013 case, including the document he signed when he pleaded guilty. A crime scene analyst with the Odessa Police Department testified his fingerprints on that document matched recent fingerprints taken from Valdez.
