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Teen gets 15 life terms in Apollo Beach rapes

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By TOM BRENNAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 10, 2010

Updated: 03/10/2010 05:13 pm

TAMPA - For his part in the robbery, abduction and rape of two Apollo Beach waitresses, Jose Walle was sentenced today to 15 life sentences – one for each year of his young life.

The teen becomes only the third person in the nation, and the first since 1990, to be jailed for life for a crime committed at age 13 that didn't involve a killing.

"This is one of the most disturbing cases I have ever come across," Hillsborough Circuit Judge Chet A. Tharpe said.

"If he is not stopped, he is going to do it again. And, quite frankly, I'm not willing to take that chance," Tharpe said. "It is my intention that you never ever walk the streets of our community again as a free man."

The life sentences will be served at the same time but will be tacked on to the 27-year sentence Walle got in the August 2008 sexual assault of a St. Petersburg restaurant worker.

Walle's parents, friends, soccer coach and attorney, as well as a psychiatrist hired by the defense, portrayed him as a youth soccer star who got caught up in drugs and came under the sway of bad influences – codefendants Rigoberto Martinez, 22, and Vincente Reyes-Carbajal, 21, who are awaiting trial.

But the waitresses said it was Walle who held them at gunpoint; they called him "the mean one."

The women were abducted from the Apollo Beach restaurant Aug. 15, 2008, taken to a street off Big Bend Road, held for several hours and repeatedly sexually assaulted before being dumped on Interstate 75.

One said Walle got in the back seat of her truck, pointed a gun at her and raped her.

"There was no doubt in my mind that he would kill us," she said. "He chose to rob us. He chose to abduct us. He was the one who raped me. I believe he deserved to be put away for life."

Walle pleaded guilty to 19 felonies last month. He did so without a plea deal, leaving him at the mercy of the court.

His attorney, Darlene Barror, asked for the same sentence Walle got in Pinellas.

The victims and prosecutors pushed for life.

"I think he should be shown the same mercy he showed us – none," the other victim told Tharpe.

The women held hands as they awaited their turn to speak. They wiped away tears and hugged each other when Tharpe announced the life sentences.

Walle looked at the floor through most of the hearing, shuffling his feet. He told Tharpe he was sorry but never apologized to the women and didn't look in their direction.

"I was angry," he said in explanation of his crimes. "I was on drugs."

But Assistant State Attorney Rita Peters said Walle wasn't the passive follower the defense sought to portray. She said Martinez had to talk the teen out of shooting the two women.

Peters also said Walle laughed and smiled his way through a presentence interview with a Department of Corrections official.

Walle told the investigator, "I'm a nice guy, but if you mess with me I have no problems killing you," Peters quoted from the report.

Tharpe found that comment the most disturbing.

"He's going to kill; it's just a matter of time," he said.

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 259-7698.

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