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Convicted child molester sentenced to life in prison
By CHASE SQUIRES, Times Staff Writer
DADE CITY -- With or without an attorney Friday, a prosecutor said Vincent L. Sandoval was looking at the same outcome at his sentencing hearing. But on the spot, Sandoval fired his attorney in the courtroom just before he was sentenced, opting to represent himself. He complained his public defender had done nothing to help him. He claimed his public defender held a grudge against him. But Sandoval had nothing factual to add, no legal grounds to stave off the inevitable. And prosecutor Stacey Sumner said there was no allowable alternative to the mandatory life sentence awaiting Sandoval for his capital sexual battery conviction earlier this week. So for assault on a child in 1983, Circuit Judge Wayne Cobb sentenced Sandoval to life in prison. Sandoval's public defender, Kirk Campbell, left the courtroom before the sentence was pronounced. Plant City attorney Richard Muga appeared on behalf of Sandoval's family, which includes five sisters and seven brothers. He urged the judge to be lenient, especially considering Sandoval was sole caregiver to a 9-year-old daughter. But when Cobb asked if he had any legal standing to ask for a reduction, Muga admitted he did not. Sandoval will have to serve a minimum of 25 years before he is eligible for parole on his life term. He vowed to appeal. Sandoval, 43, lured a 7-year-old boy into a bedroom 20 years ago. With the promise of more time playing with an electronic football game, he coaxed the child into pulling down his pants, then performed oral sex on him. In Tuesday's trial, the victim, a 26-year-old construction worker whose name has been withheld by the Times because of the nature of the crime, presented the only testimony that a crime had been committed. His account of the assault was accompanied solely by testimony from a detective that the victim reported the assault to in 2001. The victim said he came forward only after reading a newspaper account reporting Sandoval was charged with assaulting a child. There were no other witnesses at the Tuesday trial, but jurors took less than an hour to convict. The foreman later said jurors judged the victim's testimony to be truthful. Sandoval told Cobb on Friday he never got the legal help he needed. In May of last year, Sandoval wrote to Cobb, claiming he was a victim of discrimination. "Some of these guys that are incarcerated here with me tell me that Mr. Campbell does not like Mexicans, that he doesn't try to defend them in any way," wrote Sandoval, who is Mexican. Campbell scoffed at that allegation. His boss, senior public defender Tom Hanlon, said the Public Defender's Office would continue to represent Sandoval on three other pending cases, including allegations Sandoval fondled a teenage girl. A pretrial hearing on those charges is set for April. Hanlon said Campbell gave notice before the trial that he intended to resign from the office at the end of the month to pursue a solo career.
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