Man gets life due to mandatory sentence

David Allen Vasquez, age 32, will be serving life in prison for sexual assault.

Vasquez’s trial began on Monday. He entered a plea of not guilty. 

A jury of six men and six women found him guilty on Wednesday. Then, 22nd Judicial District Court Judge Bruce Boyer sentenced Vasquez to life based on the state’s repeat sexual offender law.

District Attorney Wes Mau said the repeat sexual offender law makes a life sentence mandatory in a case where the defendant is convicted of certain sex crimes if the defendant had been convicted of one of several other generally sex-related offenses. Vasquez had been convicted of sexual assault in Williamson County in 2006.

Vasquez’s accuser testified that he sexually assaulted her in November 2015 while she was sleeping on a couch after socializing with Vasquez and some other friends. When she woke, she said, Vasquez had placed his hand inside her clothes and was penetrating her with his fingers. She said she pushed him away and told him to stop. 

During the punishment hearing, the prosecution presented evidence showing that Vasquez was already a registered sex offender when the incident occurred in 2015. In 2006, Vasquez was convicted of a “very similar crime” in Williamson County, a press release from Mau’s office says. Williamson County records show that he pleaded guilty.

According to the state sex offender registry, Vasquez served two years and six months for the Williamson County offense, and his risk level was deemed “moderate.” 

In relation to the November 2015 incident, a Hays County Grand Jury indicted Vasquez for sexual assault in January of 2016. Court records show that his case was filed in district court about nine months later.

Mau recognized the work of Assistant District Attorneys Kathleen Arnold and Erika Price, who handled the trial for the prosecution, and to the victim, her family, and her friends who testified at the trial. Mau also expressed thanks for the cooperation of the Hays Caldwell County Women’s Shelter and the victim advocates at the Hays County District Attorney’s Office. 

“Without the people around sexual assault victims, people who are willing to stand up for and provide the emotional support those victims so desperately need, offenders like Mr. Vasquez can go undetected and unpunished,” Mau said in a press release. “It is only together with the victim and her support system that prosecutors and police ... can bring these cases to trial and stop offenders from continuing their victimizations.”