Man guilty in child rape; Illegal immigrant called a serial sexual offender.

Byline: Gary V. Murray

WORCESTER - A 56-year-old city man described by a prosecutor as "a serial sex offender" was sentenced to 12 to 13 years in state prison yesterday after admitting in court that he kidnapped and raped an 11-year-old girl.

Cipriano Aragon, formerly of 5 Vernon Terrace, was also placed on probation for five years, to begin upon his release from prison, after pleading guilty in Worcester Superior Court to rape of a child with force, kidnapping a child and enticing a child under the age of 16.

Mr. Aragon, who was a friend of the victim's family, raped the girl in a closed factory building on Mayfield Street after getting permission from the child's mother to take her and her sister for pizza, according to Assistant District Attorney Joseph J. Reilly III.

While Mr. Reilly said the victim was not certain when the sexual assault occurred, the indictments against Mr. Aragon list the date of the crimes as sometime between July 1, 2006, and Aug. 20, 2007.

The prosecutor said the girl was too frightened to tell her parents what Mr. Aragon had done, but made reference to the sexual assault in a journal notation that a teacher at her school saw in October 2007.

School officials filed a

report with the state Department of Social Services, which later became the Department of Children and Families, and Worcester police began an investigation into the allegation, Mr. Reilly told the court.

Mr. Aragon was charged after being questioned by detectives and making certain admissions, according to Mr. Reilly. The prosecutor said forensic testing done at the state police crime laboratory also linked Mr. Aragon to the crime.

Citing Mr. Aragon's record of sex crime convictions in California and New Jersey, Mr. Reilly recommended that Judge John S. McCann sentence him to a term of 12 to 15 years in state prison with probation to follow.

The prosecutor said Mr. Aragon was an illegal immigrant who knew the victim's father from El Salvador and who was allowed to stay in the family's basement at times.

Mr. Reilly said Mr. Aragon "grossly violated" the trust of the victim and her family. In addition to his prior convictions, one of which involved a child, Mr. Aragon told police he was once accused of molesting a 7-year-old girl, but was not criminally prosecuted, according to Mr. Reilly.

"He is a serial sex offender. He is a pedophile," Mr. Reilly said of the defendant.

Speaking through a Spanish-speaking interpreter, Mr. Aragon said, "I feel very badly. I want to pay for what I've done."

The victim's mother asked the judge in a written impact statement to "understand a mother's pain and the trauma that my daughter has gone through on account of this man."

Mr. Aragon's lawyer, Michael G. Cashman, recommended a prison term of 7 to 9 years for his client with probation to begin upon his release from custody.

Mr. Cashman said the district attorney's office would most likely seek to have Mr. Aragon civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person upon the completion of his sentence.

As conditions of probation, Mr. Aragon was ordered to undergo sex offender counseling, to submit to GPS monitoring, to have no contact with the victim or her family and to have no unsupervised contact with children under age 16.