Palmer man sentenced for rape, assault

PALMER — A superior court judge sentenced a convicted rapist to 15 years in prison and 10 years probation Monday.

A jury convicted Jerry Inga, 40, of Palmer in April of second-degree sexual assault and third-degree assault. According to a criminal affidavit, Inga and his victim were at Inga’s stepfather’s place when Inga found $10 cleaning the house. Inga suggested they buy alcohol, then tried to have sex with her. When she refused, Inga told authorities he “slapped the (expletive) out of her,” the affidavit reads in part.

The victim — the Frontiersman does not identify sex crime victims by name — delivered a brief statement in a quiet voice prior to the sentencing.

“After the incident had happened, I’d have nightmares and previously night terrors about the incident that happened,” she said. “I just want this done and over with so I don’t have to deal with it no more.”

“I hope justice is served today,” she added.

The state pushed for 17 unsuspended years on the sexual assault charge and three years on the assault charge for a total of 20 years, based in part on numerous past convictions. Inga had previously been convicted of 12 misdemeanor and one felony assault. That would have placed the sentence close to the maximum 25-year sentence for a sexual assault.

Inga has a pattern of assaulting women, said Assistant District Attorney Brittany Dunlop.

“When you look back at the (pre-sentencing report) and see the history of violence, particularly against woman, that can be proved by clear and convincing evidence,” she said.

A defense request for mitigation based on the seriousness of the act which led to the sexual assault charge — grabbing the victim’s breast — did not apply, Dunlop said.

“The defense has argued that this was a least serious sexual assault because, essentially, it was a breast grab,” she said. “The defense hasn’t cited to a single case that tells you that a breast grab is less serious than a genital grab, or that over-clothing is less serious than under clothing.”

“Additionally, this approaches the higher crime of attempted sexual assault in the first degree,” she added. “Had (the victim) not fought back, I have no doubt that she would have been raped that night.”

The defense pushed instead for 10 years unsuspended on the sexual assault charge and two years unsuspended on the assault charge, based in part on their claims at trial that Inga had suffered a traumatic brain injury from a failed suicide attempt at age 21. Presiding Judge Kari Kristiansen and Dunlop both said the trial had not turned up any medical records supporting the claim, while the defense pointed out that none of his previous assault charges happened before the date of his presumed suicide attempt.

The state had already used Inga’s previous convictions to aggravate a fourth-degree assault to a third-degree degree assault, and considering the history for sentencing a second time could constitute double jeopardy — a legal term for trying the accused twice on a single offense — said Office of Public Advocacy attorney Lyle Stohler.

“All these aggravators are essentially the same … in that they’re based on prior criminal history,” he said. “It’s all the same behavior that we’re witnessing each time.”

The second-degree sexual assault called for a more lenient sentence in part because it was less serious than other forms of sexual assault categorized in the same way, Stohler said.

“This isn’t one of the most serious sex assaults, because when we take a look at what the sex assault is, it’s the over-the-shirt boob touch, or breast-touch,” he said. “Sex assault two includes having intercourse with people who are passed out, where somebody could get pregnant, could be exposed to an STD, could get exposed to a whole lot of stuff that’s more dangerous.”

At the same time, the state could not ask for a sentencing based on unfiled charges, Stohler said.

“If they thought it was going to be an attempted sex assault in the first degree, why didn’t they charge that?” he said.

At one point, while Dunlop was making the case that isolation should take priority over rehabilitation, in part because of Inga’s behavior, Inga interrupted.

“Yeah, I have really (expletive) behavior because I’m facing a lot of time,” he said.

In the end, Kristiansen agreed with the prosecution and recommended five years — more than the presumptive range for third-degree assault — while at the same time hewing to the defense’s request for leniency on the sexual assault charge, even though she didn’t agree with the defense’s arguments that the assault was “least serious.”

“I cannot find that by clear and convincing evidence,” she said. “The physical conduct that occurred for that touching to occur and after, in the court’s view, is not simply a touch-and-go, if you will.”

The assault could not be separated from the “brutal beating” that occurred afterward, Kristiansen said.

“Mr. Inga has a lengthy criminal history,” she said. “He’s had the benefit of misdemeanor probation and he’s had the benefit of felony probation. He didn’t do well on felony probation. It doesn’t appear to the court that rehabilitation should be a primary goal here, that it’s going to work.”

“There’s nothing the court can do to rehabilitate Inga at this point,” she said.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com