A crucial objective of every democratic state is to protect children's rights. On top of protecting minors’ rights, states prohibit and severely punish perpetrators of sexual assault against minors. In California, some forms of sexual assault, like aggravated sexual assault on a child, attract harsher penalties than others, making it crucial to understand your charges. Having a criminal lawyer by your side is critical because they will investigate your sexual assault on a child to determine if it is aggravated or not. When they can prove your crime does not meet the requirements for an aggravated charge, you will avoid fifteen years in state prison and lifetime registration as a sex offender and face lesser penalties or avoid a conviction entirely.

Overview of the Crime

PEN 269 prohibits you from engaging in any of the following acts with a child below 14 and at least seven years younger:

PEN 261 Rape

Rape is defined under PEN 261 as causing penetration of a vagina or sexual organ by the penis through particular means like:

  • Physical force to overcome the victim’s will
  • Any conduct that is intended to hurt or kill
  • Threats enough to compel or bully the victim into having sex
  • Threats or statements aimed at demonstrating your intentions to injure
  • Deceit or fraud
  • Fear
  • Revenge

When you engage in sexual intercourse with a child under 14 or at least seven years younger than you using any of the above means, you will face charges under PC 269.

Gang rape

According to PEN 264.1, it is unlawful to act in concert with someone else to commit rape voluntarily. The offense occurs when you collaborate with someone else to engage in non-consensual sex with a victim.

In concert means either personally committing rape with the help of someone else or aiding and abetting another person who committed rape or non-consensual sexual penetration. Aiding and abetting means you were aware someone planned in committing a crime, you planned on helping them commit the crime, and you facilitated the commission of the crime through your words or actions.

Therefore, when you engage in a gang rape where the victim is a child younger than 14, your conduct is considered an aggravation of sexual assault on a child.

PEN 286 Sodomy

Sodomy is sexual contact between the penis of one person and someone else’s anus. PC 286 prohibits any sodomy acts when:

  • They are committed against an underage person
  • Accomplished through fear or coercion
  • The victim cannot consent because of their unconsciousness, mental condition, intoxication, or physical disorder.

You will be guilty of this act even with the slightest penetration. Additionally, ejaculation is not required by the court, although the contact must be accomplished through violence or fear.

Oral Copulation

According to PEN 287, it is illegal to cause the mouth of a minor to contact your penis, vagina, or anus. Additionally, the section applies to individuals of all ages when the oral copulation act is accomplished by employing fear, violence, or threats. Oral copulation, in this case, refers to contact between the mouth and a sexual organ or anus.

Another act in aggravation of sexual assault on a child is sexual penetration under PC 289. Therefore, when you engage in forcible sexual penetration using an object and without the victim’s consent, you will face PEN 289 violation charges and possible conviction.

It is worth noting that for any of the conducts highlighted above to amount to a PEN 269 violation, the victim must be below 14 years while at the same time being seven years or higher younger than the defendant. An excellent example of aggravated sexual assault on a child is when a 26-year-old man sodomizes a girl aged 13.

The prosecuting team will not charge and convict you with PC 269 violation if all the case elements are not met beyond a reasonable doubt. They must prove that you engaged in certain conduct with a minor who meets the victim requirements outlined under the statute.

Criminal Penalties for PEN 269 Violation

You will be convicted when the prosecutor proves the elements of aggravated sexual assault on a child beyond reasonable certainty. The penalties for a conviction include prison incarceration, court fines, and registration as a sex offender.

A PC 269 violation is a felony whose sentence attracts minimum prison incarceration of 15 years. Based on your case’s circumstances, the sentence could be increased to life imprisonment. Also, you will be subject to a consecutive and increased sentence for each victim of the assault or incident if the crime was committed on the same victim on separate occasions.

Sometimes, the judge can impose formal probation in place of the prison sentence. However, while on probation, you must adhere to particular court conditions. Otherwise, the probation will be revoked, and you will be sent back to prison to serve the original sentence.

On top of the prison sentence, you will be required to register as a level three sex offender. Aggravated sexual assault on a minor is a tier-three offense, meaning your name will appear on the list of sex offenders for the rest of your life. Appearing on the sex-offender register will have severe consequences on your social and professional life. Professionally, you will be an ineligible candidate for a professional license. And if you already hold a professional license, a conviction for a PC 269 violation will result in revocation.

Also, registration as a sex offender restricts your liberties like the right to work because employers will not consider you for a job when you appear on the sex offenders register. Again, your freedom of movement will be affected because there is a national database or register for sex offenders. Therefore, even if you relocate to another state, the law requires you to register afresh in the new state. Even relocating will not protect you from the consequences.

Furthermore, your right to work will be limited further, considering you cannot work near a school or kindergarten. Jessica’s law prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 of a kindergarten, school, or park where children gather. This not only affects your employment but tenancy. Landlords will not lease their apartments if their property is within the area defined by the law.

Despite a PC 269 violation attracting severe penalties, there is still hope after being charged because you can convince the prosecutor to lower the charges to a lesser offense or dismiss the case. However, this will not be easy. You must work closely with an experienced lawyer to negotiate for a lesser charge when a conviction is imminent or have the case dismissed.

Legal Defenses for PC 269 Violation

Whether you will be spending the rest of your life in prison or with your family depends on the defense you apply in your case. Therefore, you should take the charges seriously and hire an experienced criminal lawyer. A legal representative will investigate the case and create solid defense strategies that will result in a case dismissal or charge reduction. The legal defense your lawyer will use to contest the charges includes:

  1. You are Not Guilty of the Crime Outlined in PEN 269

You are only guilty of aggravated sexual assault on a child if you have committed a crime defined under PEN 269. Therefore, when you are not guilty of any offenses against a child, you should not face charges for PC 269 violation. However, the defense will apply if you committed the sexual assault by accident.

Saying the incident was an accident alone is not enough to convince the jury otherwise. You must present evidence to show otherwise. Your legal team must find eyewitnesses who say the incident happened to give an account of the events that led to the arrest. The statement from these witnesses must show the assault was not deliberate but accidental or you committed another crime but not a PEN 269 violation.

Also, the attorney can argue that the evidence presented by the prosecutor is misleading. The intention here is to make the jury doubt the evidence presented by the prosecutor, thus failing to meet the beyond reasonable doubt threshold. That way, the court will not find you guilty of sexual assault on a child.

However, based on the case circumstances, you can avoid PEN 269 violation charges and admit to committing a lesser offense like indecent exposure. The outcomes of these two cases after conviction are very different. A conviction for indecent exposure attracts a maximum jail term of six months, while that of a PEN 269 violation is punishable by at least 15 years in prison. A conviction for indecent exposure will be a relief.

  1. The Victim is Not A Child

For purposes of PEN 269, a child is anyone below 14 years. Therefore, a violation of the statute only occurs when the victim is under 14. When the victim is above 14 years, the prosecutor cannot charge or convict you for the crime.

Similarly, PC 269 requires that the victim is at least seven years younger than the defendant. Therefore, you can argue in your defense that the age difference between you and the victim is at most six years and thus fail to fulfill all the elements of the crime. You will not be guilty of PEN 269 violation if the age difference between you and the victim is less than seven years.

However, this defense strategy will not help you avoid a conviction entirely. If you engage in sexual intercourse with the victim, you will face statutory rape charges under PEN 261.5. The offense is a wobbler. When filed as a misdemeanor, a conviction attracts no more than 12 months in jail. On the other hand, a felony sentence attracts up to 48 months in prison. Neither of these penalties is higher than that of the PEN 269 violation.

  1. Wrongful Arrest or False Allegations

You can only face PC 269 violation charges when you have committed any crimes enumerated in the law, like rape, sexual penetration, sodomy, and oral copulation. Therefore, you can argue that you are not guilty in your defense because you did not commit any of the listed crimes. However, you must back up your claim by proving the victim or someone else is falsely accusing you of the offense out of revenge or spite.

You must understand that many defendants are sentenced due to false accusations or wrongful arrests. So, you must work closely with a lawyer to provide evidence to the court showing why they should believe you are being falsely accused of the crime and what happened to lead to the wrongful arrest. For example, your ex-spouse is afraid of losing child custody. In the process, she convinces your 10-year-old daughter to allege that you sexually assaulted her. The daughter shares the same story with the police, and you are wrongfully arrested for PEN 269 violation.

Luckily, your lawyer interrogates the victim in the absence of your ex-spouse and reveals the truth that they were following your ex-spouse's instructions to lie about the sexual assault. When the lawyer reveals the truth to the court that the false allegations resulted from your ex-spouse seeking to gain an advantage in a child custody case, the charges will be dropped.

  1. Coerced Confession

You can argue that you were coerced into a confession if you were arrested and charged for the crime after confession. California statutes prohibit authorities from applying bossy measures to obtain a coerced confession. Therefore, when your attorney can demonstrate that the law enforcement pressured you into a confession, the confession will be inadmissible in court and consequently excluded from the case. Alternatively, the charges can be entirely dismissed if the confession the police were looking to obtain was for a crime you never committed.

When evidence is withdrawn from a case, it becomes weak, and the prosecuting team will have no other option than to reduce the charges to a lesser offense or dismiss the case entirely.

  1. You are a Victim of a Mistaken Identity

You can be wrongfully arrested for aggravated sexual assault on a child when the victim mistakes you for the actual perpetrator. Usually, this stems from being in the wrong place at the wrong time or due to unsubstantiated suspicions.

For instance, Jane, a 13-year-old girl, is sexually abused on the way to school. Unfortunately, she did not have a good look at the perpetrator because he was wearing a hoodie. Nevertheless, she noticed the assailant’s neck tattoos and blue eyes. After the incident, Jane was afraid of every male that came close to her, thus accusing the neighbor Peter, who resembled the perpetrator’s description as he had blue eyes and tattoos.

As the trial proceeds, Peter’s criminal lawyer discovers that Jane’s original report indicated that the perpetrator had neck tattoos. However, Peter had tattoos on the hands and not the neck meaning Jane mistakenly identified Peter as the assailant. As a result, Jane retracted her initial statement, and all the charges against Peter were dropped.

Related Offenses

Several offenses are similar to PC 269 violations. These crimes are:

Lewd Acts on a Minor

According to PC 288, it is a crime to improperly touch a child for sexual gratification or make a child touch themselves or another person for sexual reasons. You will face these charges when the victim is a child younger than 16.

The penalties for the offense greatly depend on the child’s age, whether the lewd act was accomplished using threats, violence, or force, or if there was a pattern of lewd acts. The offense is filed as a felony, and when convicted, you will face the following penalties:

  • 36, 72, or 96 months incarceration in a state prison
  • Felony or formal probation
  • A maximum of $10,000 in monetary court fines
  • Lifetime registration as a sex offender because PC 288 is a Tier 3 offense

Continuous Sexual Abuse on a Child

As per PC 288.5, you commit continuous sexual abuse on a child when:

  • You live or have frequent access to a child 14 or younger
  • And for at least three months, engage in over three lewd acts or substantial sexual contact

PC 288.5 violation is a felony punishable with six, twelve, or 16 years in prison. In addition, a conviction will add a strike on your record and the requirement to register as a sex offender for a lifetime.

PC 261 Rape

When you engage in nonconsensual sexual intercourse through force or threats or with an unconscious or underage person, you commit a rape offense under PEN 261. Rape is also a felony, and when sentenced, you will face three, six, or eight years in prison. Again, you will be required to register as a tier three offender or be sentenced to formal probation in place of the prison sentence.

Find an Experienced Los Angeles Criminal Defense Lawyer Near Me

When you or someone you know faces an aggravated sexual assault on a child charge, challenging the victim’s testimony can be difficult. In these cases, you need a profound and experienced defense lawyer who understands court processes and the defense strategies you need to have the charge reduced or dismissed. Call the Los Angeles Criminal Lawyer today at 310-502-1314 for a free consultation.