JAMAICA PLAIN MAN GUILTY OF RAPING TWO CHILDREN March 17, 2008 A Suffolk Superior Court jury late last week found a 66-year-old Jamaica Plain man guilty of raping two young relatives repeatedly over a period of six years in the 1990s, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley announced. Jurors deliberated for about an hour Friday afternoon before convicting GUILLERMO VAZQUEZ (D.O.B. 5/19/41) of four counts of rape of a child. Superior Court Judge Patrick F. Brady ruled that evidence did not support a fifth count of rape and an additional count of indecent assault and battery on a child under fourteen. Brady ordered that Vazquez be held without bail until he is sentenced on April 9. Vazquez faces up to life in prison. Evidence introduced at trial proved that both victims endured years of abuse beginning when they were six years old. One victim was raped until she was nine, the other until she was 13. All of the assaults took place within the defendant’s Chestnut Avenue home. Now young women, both victims testified against Vazquez in court. “The crime of rape is among the most violent and emotionally devastating, and the rape of a child even more so,” Conley said. “That both young women found the strength to disclose their abuse and testify at trial is proof of their courage and resilience.” Over the course of a five-day trial, Assistant District Attorney Audrey Mark introduced evidence and testimony proving that Vazquez began the systematic rape of a six-year-old female relative in 1993 while he was supposed to be babysitting her. In 1996, he began raping a second female relative, by then also six. The abuse of both girls stopped in 2000, when the older victim – at the age of 13 – told a friend about the abuse. At around the same time, the younger victim, who at that time was nine years old, disclosed to the older one that she, too, had been abused. When questioned by her family, however, the younger victim denied the abuse. In 2005, the younger victim disclosed her abuse again, this time to a school counselor. A personal diary that she had kept as a child, in which she wrote about the rapes, was entered into evidence during the trial to support her initial disclosure to the older victim. Vazquez was represented by attorney Jose Espinoza. Return to the Press Releases page.