By Jeremy Walsh
A husband−and−wife stripper team from Corona pleaded guilty last week in connection with the rape of two underage girls whom they met through the social networking Web site MySpace, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
Julio Rojas, 32, pleaded guilty to two counts of rape for separate incidents with underage girls in 2006 and 2007, Brown said. Rojas’ wife, Sophie Soto, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of promoting a sexual performance by a child for convincing an underage teenage girl to take pictures of her genitals and e−mail them to Soto, Brown said. Both girls were under 15, the DA’s office said.
Rojas is expected to be sentenced to eight years in prison, the DA said, while Soto is likely to be sentenced to between two and six years, Brown said. Both defendants will be required to register as sex offenders, Brown said. Sentencing was set for Dec. 16.
“The defendants used the Internet to lure obviously troubled young girls to their apartment, where they plied them with liquor and sexually assaulted them,” Brown said in a statement. “These guilty pleas allow justice to be done while sparing the young victims from the additional trauma of testifying at trial.”
Rojas and Soto were previously accused of sexually abusing three girls. The exploitation of two of the girls began in November 2006, when Soto e−mailed one of them via MySpace, the DA said. The DA’s office had no information regarding the third victim, who was added to the indictment in June.
Through e−mails, text messages and phone calls, Soto convinced the first girl to take more than 20 nude pictures of herself and send them to her, the DA said. Soto also told the first girl, who was not getting along with her mother, that she could come and live with her, authorities said.
The two girls ran away from home in January 2007 and went to Soto’s apartment, where she gave them alcohol and sexually abused them in the bedroom before Rojas came home and had sex with all three, the DA said.
Later that night, Soto and Rojas took the two girls to a Manhattan strip club, where Soto performed and then brought the first girl on stage to perform oral sex on her and several patrons. Another female did the same thing with the second girl, the DA said.
The strippers’ sexual relationship with the two girls continued between February and May 2007, Brown said. The case came to light when the girls told their parents, Brown said.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e−mail at jwalsh@timesledger.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 154.
