Jury finds Wichita man guilty of kidnapping, choking, raping girl in Riverside in 2020
A Sedgwick County jury deliberated for just over two hours Friday before handing down guilty verdicts on four charges filed against a Wichita man accused of abducting, choking and raping a 12-year-old girl who ran away from a foster home on May 22, 2020.
The girl escaped and got help from a Wichita Water Treatment Plant employee who saw her walking up to the facility gate through surveillance cameras after midnight, according to a probable cause affidavit released in the case.
Gerardo Aguero-Hernandez, 29, will be sentenced July 6 for aggravated battery, battery, aggravated kidnapping and rape, Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Dan Dillon and Aguero-Hernandez’s court-appointed lawyer, Bradley Sylvester, said. He was acquitted Friday of one count of attempted first-degree murder.
Any appeal Aguero-Hernandez might seek will be filed after he is sentenced, Sylvester said. The trial, which started Monday, “took a full week and had over 200 exhibits,” he added. Sedgwick County District Judge Bruce Brown presided.
The affidavit says the girl was trying to walk at night from North Broadway to her grandfather’s house on South Seneca when Aguero-Hernandez lured her into his vehicle by offering her a ride and cocaine.
Instead of taking her to her destination, the affidavit says Aguero-Hernandez pulled onto a dirt road, strangled her until she nearly passed out, placed his hand over her nose and mouth and sexually assaulted her, the affidavit says.
When she fought, the girl later told police, Aguero-Hernandez told her: “you need to go with it before I go violent.” He also punched her head and chest and pushed her head into the vehicle door when she struggled, the affidavit says she told authorities.
Aguero-Hernandez eventually let the girl go after she yelled “that she wanted out of the car,” the affidavit says. She ran away to the water plant building, 1815 W. Pine, for help, she told police. Authorities linked Aguero-Hernandez to the crime using video surveillance footage that captured his vehicle entering Riverside Park and leaving Sims Park, in the Riverside neighborhood, shortly before the girl ran to the water plant, the affidavit says.
Aguero-Hernandez told police in an interview that he “was extremely intoxicated” and didn’t remember “anything about that evening,” the affidavit said. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
