A Tucson man convicted last month of raping a 12-year-old girl he met on a telephone chat line was sentenced to 65 years in prison Friday, but not before he proclaimed his innocence once again.
"There's nothing to substantiate anything she said. I didn't do it," Anthony Hutchinson, 24, told Pima County Superior Court Judge John Leonardo.
A jury took less than an hour to convict Hutchinson of one count of kidnapping and three counts of sexual conduct with a minor.
According to prosecutors, the girl and a friend met Hutchinson on an adults-only chat line four days after her 12th birthday in July 2006.
After telling the girls he was 16, Hutchinson met them at the victim's apartment complex.
The girl agreed to get into his car so they could "hang out" together, but instead he forced her to submit to three separate sex acts after driving to a nearby park, said Deputy Pima County Attorney Melissa Rueschhoff.
People are also reading…
Afterward, Hutchinson dropped the girl at home, the prosecutor said.
Feeling ashamed and guilty, the girl didn't tell her mother what happened until the next day, Rueschhoff said. By the time a sexual-assault exam was done, the girl had washed.
While there was no DNA evidence, witnesses testified there was other evidence of the rapes.
Hutchinson was arrested after being tracked down through his phone number, Rueschhoff said.
Defense attorney Michael Mussman told jurors the girl lied about the incident to escape being punished for getting into a car with a stranger.
The girl also lied about her age to Hutchinson, Mussman said.
The victim's mother told Leonardo Friday that she wouldn't wish what happened to her daughter and the aftermath on her worst enemy.
She pleaded for Leonardo to give Hutchinson the maximum sentence of 105 years so that no one else will ever be victimized by him.
The minimum sentence Hutchinson could have received was 39 years. He must serve his entire sentence.
Rueschhoff told Leonardo police are investigating the possibility Hutchinson sexually abused other young girls, including two relatives.
