By Times Staff Writer
Published September 24, 2004
TAMPA - Dony Cisneros, whose own lawyer said he lied his way out of a rape charge last April, was convicted Thursday of one count of sexual battery and two counts of armed burglary.
A Hillsborough jury took about an hour and a half to convict Cisneros, a Venezuelan national, of raping a Tampa woman in September 2002 and confronting a Town 'N Country woman while armed with a knife three months later.
Hillsborough Circuit Judge Wayne Timmerman sentenced Cisneros, 25, to three consecutive life sentences.
Cisneros made headlines after winning an acquittal in April on a charge of raping a Bayshore Boulevard woman. Defense attorney Jorge Chalela reported that Cisneros had confessed his guilt to him before trial, but that Cisneros insisted on testifying falsely that he had consensual sex with the woman. Cisneros testified to his innocence this week in the two other incidents, but the jury didn't buy his claims this time. "We're pleased that the jury could identify his story for what it was - a story," said prosecutor Michael Sinacore.
