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An Apex man originally charged with raping his wife pleaded guilty July 17 to stalking and committing sexual battery against her, court records show.
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Bobby Joe Ortez, 36, will serve a minimum of 26 months and a maximum of 53 months in prison — 20 to 36 months for the misdemeanor sexual battery and 6 to 17 months for the felony stalking — according to the terms of his plea deal. He will get 87 days of credit for time served and must register as a sex offender.
Ortez faced 12 charges stemming from multiple incidents:
The Wake County District Attorney’s Office dropped 10 of Ortez’s charges — including second-degree rape, a second-degree forcible sex offense and second-degree kidnapping — in exchange for Ortez pleading guilty to felony stalking and sexual battery.
District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told The N&O in a Wednesday phone call that by securing a plea deal, the victim could know for certain that Ortez would serve prison time and register as a sex offender.
“There was an interest from the victim in reaching a resolution to this matter now,” Freeman said.
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While the DA’s office believed it had the evidence to win a jury trial, Freeman said, there is an “additional hurdle” with juries in sexual assault trials where the victim and defendant were in a relationship. The office also considers the trauma a victim must bear to go through a trial when weighing up how to resolve a case.
Wake County has an electronic monitoring program for defendants accused of domestic violence through the nonprofit Criminal Justice Alternatives. When Ortez was originally charged in January, the DA’s Office did not ask for Ortez to be electronically monitoring, Freeman wrote in a text to The N&O.
“He had no prior record at that point,” Freeman wrote. “He was given a secured bond and placed on the pretrial release program to be supervised.”
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