This past July, witnesses heard a woman's cry and saw one man assaulting her while another acted as a "lookout." Now the two have been sentenced to time behind bars, and the younger of the two may be deported because he is an undocumented immigrant. The crimes took place behind the Shell gas station on West Street in Annapolis.
The two men, 53-year-old Jose Alexander Ortiz-Urrutia and 35-year-old Rubicel Montiel Lopez were arrested last month. They were incarcerated at the Jennifer Road Detention center.
According to media reports, Lopez was originally charged with second-degree rape, but in January, he agreed to plead guilty to a third-degree sex offense. During a Feb. 27 hearing, Lopez was sentenced to three years in prison by Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Mark Crooks. In December, Ortiz-Urrutia was also sentenced to three years incarceration after submitting an Alford plea to second-degree assault. An Alford plea is not a confession of guilt but an admission that prosecutors have enough evidence to support a conviction. However, Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Stacy McCormack suspended all but time served, agreeing Wednesday to modify Ortiz-Urrutia’s three-year initial sentence to 364 days.
