Rape jury clears one man, convicts another

While one Honduran immigrant was found innocent of raping a 15-year-old Mandeville-area girl, another Honduran man was found guilty as charged of the aggravated rape.

A friend of the victim called her on Nov. 5, 2005, and asked her to come over to the Shady Oaks mobile home park at 1100 Rapatel St. in the Mandeville area. When she arrived, her "friend," Sara Colson, told her to go inside and then allegedly told the men in the trailer to have at her, according to testimony in the four-day trial in Covington and authorities.

The victim called her mother and said she was being held against her will, and her mother subsequently called authorities. She initially told authorities that she was raped by five men, authorities said.

A 12-member, St. Tammany Parish jury took about three hours on Thursday evening to find Danis Caballero, 29, guilty of participating in the rape. Aggravated rape carries a mandatory life sentence.

Dago Mencias, 32, was acquitted.

Mandeville police pulled Mencias over on Jan. 28, 2008, for a traffic violation. Immigration officials determined that he was an illegal immigrant from Honduras and had a St. Tammany Sheriff's Office rape charge pending against him in connection with the incident, according to authorities.

Mencias, whom witnesses were unable to positively identify in the courtroom, will be deported to Honduras, authorities have said. While he lived at the trailer, Mencias was in Houston at the time of the incident, his defense attorney, Warren Montgomery, argued and witnesses testified.

The victim did have his sperm on the back, bottom leg of her jeans, according to DNA analysis. But Montgomery argued that it had gotten there secondhand, when the victim's jeans rubbed against a bed or another object in the trailer that had Mencias' sperm.

Assistant District Attorneys Leigh Anne Wall and Nick Noriea Jr. prosecuted the case.

Colson, initially charged with aggravated rape, pleaded guilty in May to attempted sexual battery. Her sentencing was postponed until she testified at the Caballero and Mencias trial.

State Judge Allison Penzato is scheduled to sentence her Nov. 2.

Dimas Velasquez, who allegedly held the victim down but never raped her, pleaded guilty to attempted forcible rape in August 2008, and now-retired state Judge Donald Fendlason sentenced him to 30 months in the parish jail.

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Benjamin Alexander-Bloch can be reached at bbloch@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4827.