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MORRIS COUNTY

Parsippany rapist's 17-year sentence upheld

Peggy Wright
@PeggyWrightDR

The state's Appellate Division has upheld a 17-year prison sentence for an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who chased, tackled, beat and raped a teenager on a Parsippany street in 2007.

Convicted rapist Eric Rangel in Superior Court, Morristown, in 2013.

The 13-page ruling, made public Tuesday, upholds convictions against Eric Clemente Rangel, now 28, for sexual assault, aggravated assault and obstruction of justice in connection with a brutal attack on an 18-year-old woman on a Lake Hiawatha street around 3 a.m. on April 22, 2007.

After a trial before a Morris County jury in 2009,  Rangel -- who claimed he was in an alcoholic blackout and had no memory of his crimes -- originally was found guilty of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, attempted aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, aggravated assault and obstruction. Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto imposed a sentence of 27 years, with 85 percent of the stint to be served before parole eligibility.

However, because of legal errors, the appellate division threw out the convictions for aggravated and attempted aggravated sexual assault. The Supreme Court agreed with the two charges being tossed. Ahto re-sentenced Rangel in 2013 to 17 years in prison -- with 85 percent of the term to be served before parole consideration -- on the surviving counts. Rangel's lawyers again appealed the 17-year sentence, this time unsuccessfully arguing that the beating and sexual assault were part of the same event so the sentences on each should have run concurrently, instead of consecutively. The obstruction charge had already been run concurrently to the remaining counts.

In upholding the 17-year sentence, the appellate panel found that Ahto appropriately found that the sexual assault and aggravated assault (the beating) had separate purposes and were distinct crimes -- one to degrade the victim, the other to immobilize her physically.

"Here the sexual assault and aggravated assault had different objectives, the first being to sexually defile (the victim) and the second being to cause her serious bodily injury. Each offense was separate and distinct and required its own punishment to address the particular harm to (the victim)," the appellate ruling said.

Rangel has been in custody since the attack, first in the Morris County jail until his conviction and then in state prison since July 2009, and gets credit for the last eight years and eight months. He has about six more years to serve in prison before he completes 85 percent of the 17-year sentence. Upon release from prison, he is expected to be deported to his native Mexico.

The victim was walking home from a backyard barbecue on North Beverwyck Road when Rangel, a stranger to her, cat-called and then chased her as she frantically made a 911 call from her cell phone. A resident heard her screams for help and called Parsippany police, who caught Rangel as he was sexually assaulting the woman in a clump of bushes. As part of the evidence at trial, the jury heard the victim's piercing screams and pleas for help to the State Police dispatcher who received her 911 call as she tried to flee her attacker.

   Staff Writer Peggy Wright: 973-267-1142; pwright@GannettNJ.com.