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Man who reentered US after deportation, then sexually assaulted woman in Harvard, sent to federal prison

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A man convicted in 2022 of sexually assaulting a woman in Harvard has been sentenced to two years in a federal prison for being in the United States unlawfully at the time, federal authorities announced Friday.

Santos Vasquez-Ortiz, 41, a foreign national from Guatemala, was deported from the United States in 2008, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice, which said he then illegally reentered the country,

He committed the sexual assault in Harvard on or about Jan. 1, 2021, according to the criminal complaint in the McHenry County court. On June 3, 2022, he was sentenced to five years in prison for the crime. But with a requirement to serve just 85% of his term and credit for time served in the county jail, he would have been released early, according to court records.

Vasquez-Ortiz “was unlawfully present in the United States when he was arrested in 2021 for the Harvard offense, authorities said. He had returned to the U.S. after his deportation without “authorization from the U.S. government,” according to the DOJ.

Vasquez-Ortiz pleaded guilty earlier this year in federal court in Rockford to one count of unlawful reentry after removal, according to the DOJ. U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston imposed the two-year federal prison sentence on Monday.

The sentence was announced by Andrew Boutros, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Matthew Scarpino, Special Agent-in-Charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations in Chicago. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert S. Ladd.

Amanda Marrazzo

Amanda Marrazzo is a staff reporter for Shaw Media who has written stories on just about every topic in the Northwest Suburbs including McHenry County for nearly 20 years.