The Justice Department has announced the verdict of a Texas man who kidnapped a teenager at a muzzle, then took him across the state’s borders to Los Angeles County, and led him to multiple sexual assaults.
The girl was 13 years old.
On Friday, the judge sentenced 63-year-old Stephen Robert Sablan to 35 years in federal prison and ordered him to pay $1,158 in reparations.
The bill said Sablan approached a young girl on July 6, while walking on the streets of San Antonio, Texas.
He pulls out a black handgun and tells the victim to get into his car, or he will hurt her. Fearing her life, she obeyed, DOJ said.
Officials said Sablan later asked the girl what her age, but she replied that she was 13.
At one point she said she had a friend in Australia and although Sablan seemed to have told her that he could take her to a cruise ship to visit her friend, she “I had to do something first for him.”
He hugged her, took her to Long Beach, and used his gun to threaten her and control her.
“[Sablan] The prosecutor said in the memorandum of the verdict. “And in a while [Sablan] Her parents abused her, suffered from a missing child, and feared the worst. The worst was not far from reality. ”
On the morning of July 9th, Sablan parked his Nissan Sentra in his car in Long Beach, dressed in and took it to the laundry. While he was inside, the girl scrawled messages for help on paper, desperately trying to get someone’s attention.
According to the Long Beach Police Department, a good Samaritan saw the note, admitted the girl and immediately called 911.
Police responded and arrested Sablan. The predator was indicted in July 2023 and pleaded guilty in January 2024.
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