Global Courant 2023-05-19 21:28:51
A Honduran national who police say illegally entered the United States in 2021 has been accused of raping a teenager in Alabama.
Geovani Grevi Rivera-Zavala, 29, has been charged with rape and is being held without bail following an alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl last weekend at a restaurant in Prattville, Alabama, reported the Montgomery Advertiser.
Alabama police said in court that the teenage victim was eating with family members when she saw Rivera-Zavala staring at her from across the restaurant.
The girl later walked to the bathroom, where she saw another woman she did not know, and when that woman left, Rivera-Zavala, who she also did not know, allegedly entered the bathroom, locked the door and forced the teen stole and raped her.
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(L) Geovani Grevi Rivera-Zavala (R) Autauga County Prison (Autauga County Sheriff’s Office)
Kaitlyn Sweat, a Prattville Police Department investigator, testified that during the incident, the girl tried to fight off her attacker, telling him “No” several times.
The girl allegedly told her relatives what happened when she returned to the table, after which the police were called and Rivera-Zavala was identified as he tried to leave the restaurant.
Sweat says Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted an immigration officer to Rivera-Zavala, who said in court that government sources told her the 29-year-old from Honduras had illegally entered the US in November 2021 in Eagle Pass, Texas.
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Autauga County Jail in Prattville, Alabama (Google Earth)
That reports WSFA-TV that Rivera-Zavala used a different name at the time he entered the United States and was fingerprinted and then released into the country.
“We are not interested in negotiating with the FBI,” District Attorney CJ Robinson told Autauga District Judge Jessica Sanders, who denied bail for Rivera-Zavala.
“They can take his body into custody when DOC (Department of Corrections) is done with him. We’re not negotiating a lower price so the FBI can deport him.”
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Migrants at the front of the line are processed for entry by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (Fox News Digital / Jon Michael Raasch)
Rivera-Zavala faces a class A rape charge that could result in a prison sentence of 10 to 99 years to life.
The U.S. Border Patrol reported 458,000 encounters with migrants during fiscal year 2020 and then 1.7 million in fiscal year 2021. In fiscal year 2022, the number of encounters with migrants at the border rose to 2.3 million, and border authorities more than 718,000 migrants attempted to cross the US-Mexico border in the first 100 days of fiscal year 2023.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Andrew Mark Miller is a writer at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to [email protected].
