HARRISBURG, PA \u2014 A Luzerne County jury has convicted a Hazleton man of repeatedly raping an 11-year-old child, a case that came to light only after a classmate bravely reported the abuse to a teacher, authorities announced Thursday.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Dave Sunday said Elias Dominguez, 36, was found guilty of rape of a child, corruption of minors, and two counts of indecent assault following a three-day trial. Sentencing is scheduled for April 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis defendant betrayed the trust of his victim, and this verdict makes it clear that if you abuse a child in Pennsylvania, you will be held accountable,\u201d Sunday said. \u201cThis case was made possible when a brave student did the right thing and informed a teacher of the abuse of their classmate\u2014and of course, by the strength of the victim. Protecting Pennsylvania\u2019s children is the solemn duty of all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said the assault occurred in 2019, when Dominguez was dating the victim\u2019s mother. The child first confided in a classmate, who reported it to a teacher. That teacher alerted Childline, Pennsylvania\u2019s child-abuse reporting hotline. The victim initially gave a partial statement but made a full disclosure two years later when ready to discuss the extent of the abuse.<\/p>\n
The case was referred to the Office of Attorney General by the Luzerne County District Attorney\u2019s Office and prosecuted by Senior Deputy Attorney General Jaime Keating.<\/p>\n
Officials praised the courage of the victim and the classmate who exposed the abuse, calling the case a stark reminder of the importance of vigilance and mandatory reporting in protecting vulnerable children.<\/p>\n
For the latest news on everything happening in Chester County and the surrounding area, be sure to follow MyChesCo on Google News<\/a> and MSN<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, PA \u2014 A Luzerne County jury has convicted a Hazleton man of repeatedly raping an 11-year-old child,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14445,22461,22462,28,30,29,11018,22463,1755],"class_list":["post-36396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-corruption-of-minors","tag-court-decisions","tag-indecent-assault","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-office-of-attorney-general","tag-rape-of-a-child","tag-sex-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}