Sentence to be suspended after 10 months

Superior Court judge says sexual abuser, 20-year-old Houston man, is treatable

Aug. 23, 2005

KATE KELLY\Frontiersman reporter

A 20-year-old Houston man in prison for the past six months for sexually abusing a 9-year-old girl three different times will get out of jail in four more months because a Palmer Superior Court judge believes the man is treatable.

"I'm expecting not to see you, but if you don't take treatment seriously, I suspect I will," Judge Eric Smith told Oscar Cano during his sentencing hearing Monday morning, adding that the sexual abuse cycle in a family can be worse than alcoholism if Cano does not stop it now.

Cano, who reportedly was sexually abused himself by an older cousin when younger, was sentenced to serve 10 months in jail, with the rest of the four-year sentence suspended, for inappropriately touching the girl with his finger on three separate occasions in January and February.

Public Defender Attorney Holly Handler argued that Cano represented an "extraordinary example" of an offender taking responsibility for his own actions by calling police himself and reporting what he had done, waiving his Miranda rights twice.

"When he was abused as a child, he was laughed at and told he was lying and was rejected by his family," Handler told the judge, adding that he didn't physically hurt the victim and the encounter was very brief. "He knew what he was doing was wrong and he pulled himself out of the situation. He wants to change."

Handler argued that inmates convicted of sexual abuse are treated the worst by other inmates, often becoming sexual abuse victims behind bars — and that is not what Cano needs if he's going to rehabilitate himself.

But prosecuting attorney Susan Powell pointed out that Cano admitted to thoughts of raping the girl while he was fondling her.

"I'm asking for a significant enough of a sentence so that he won't be back here having raped a 10-year-old," Powell told the judge, adding that Cano also abused a young cousin prior to the victim in question. "He needs community condemnation and isolation to deter him from acting on these impulses and to give him time to think about what he's done."

Cano, who reportedly has had suicidal thoughts about his actions, told the judge that he knew the victim had told her mother what happened and that the mother was threatening to call the police.

"I really hated what I did," Cano said. "I'd like to ask for forgiveness. I'm sorry. I know what I did was wrong."

In May, Cano had changed his plea to guilty to sexual contact of a minor, a class C felony, so the state dismissed the two first-degree felony charges of sexual abuse against him.