A 25-year-old man who raped a teenage girl in Tacoma and then sexually assaulted another girl while DNA tests pended in the first incident was sentenced Friday to three years to life in prison.
Carlos Manuel Mora pleaded guilty to third-degree rape in the Sept. 15, 2020 rape of a 15-year-old girl and second-degree assault with sexual motivation for a Jan. 22, 2021 incident with a 13-year-old girl. According to court records, the assaults occurred after Mora began talking with the girls on social media.
Investigators received the results of a sexual-assault forensic exam conducted in the first incident 13 months after the exam was completed. The exam was sent to one of the Washington State Patrol’s crime labs. According to the Washington State Attorney General’s Office, a backlog of more than 10,000 sexual assault kits across the state was cleared in October last year.
Pierce County Superior Court Judge Edmund Murphy sentenced Mora to 41 months to life in prison, which was in line with prosecutors’ recommendation. It is an indeterminate sentence, which means Mora must serve a set amount of time before he is eligible to petition the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board for release.
The punishment carried a 24-month enhancement because the second-degree assault was sexually motivated. The standard sentencing range for defendants prosecuted in similar cases is 13 to 17 months to life.
Mora will have to register as a sex offender. His defense attorney did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
The defendant originally was charged with second-degree rape for the Tacoma incident and second-degree rape of a child for the subsequent incident. Deputy prosecuting attorney Adam Roberts wrote in a court filing that charges were amended as part of plea negotiations and in consideration of the facts of the case.
Roberts said the resolution avoided a potential proof issue in the second-degree rape incident and that the mother of the victim in that assault supported the case resolving. He noted that the mother of the second victim did not support the plea outcome because she thought the amount of prison time prosecutors recommended was not enough.
In the first incident, Mora was driving the 15-year-old girl around in his car when it broke down in South Tacoma near 64th and South Warner streets. According to the probable cause document, they walked into an alley and Mora choked the girl unconscious, then raped her when she woke up.
She flagged someone down for help and was driven to the St. Joseph Medical Center, where she completed a sexual-assault forensic exam. Officers from the Tacoma Police Department responded to the hospital.
The second incident was investigated by the Puyallup Police Department. Records state police were called about a man possibly masturbating in his vehicle in a parking lot. When police arrived, they found Mora with his pants around his ankles and a 13-year-old girl in the seat next to him. In an interview with police, the girl reported that Mora had forced her to perform a sex act on him.
Investigators got the results of the first victim’s forensic exam Oct. 27, 2021. It showed that some DNA present was very likely from Mora. Prosecutors filed charges against him two weeks later.
Source Agencies
