JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 On June 25, a Duval County jury found Sergio Pena guilty of sexual battery and child abuse.<\/p>\n
The crimes occurred between April 1 and June 30, 2008, when Pena was 21 years old.<\/p>\n
Pena was often alone with the 11-year-old victim when she returned home from school, during which he raped her multiple times.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n After Pena left Jacksonville in late June 2008, the victim began showing signs of pregnancy, which led to the discovery of the abuse.<\/p>\n The victim disclosed the sexual abuse to her mother, who reported it to law enforcement. DNA evidence subsequently linked Pena to the sexual assault.<\/p>\n Due to Pena\u2019s illegal immigration status, an arrest warrant was issued to the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force in 2008.<\/p>\n Pena was arrested on May 10, 2023, after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona.<\/p>\n With the guilty verdict, Sergio Pena faces a mandatory life sentence.<\/p>\n A sentencing date will be set on July 28.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 On June 25, a Duval County jury found Sergio Pena guilty of sexual battery and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,20020,14621,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,7325,12650,20017,20018,20019,7326,18467,20016,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-21729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-child-abuse","12":"tag-duval-county-courthouse","13":"tag-fl","14":"tag-florida","15":"tag-fox30","16":"tag-jacksonville","17":"tag-jacksonville-fl","18":"tag-northeast-florida","19":"tag-rape","20":"tag-sergio-pena","21":"tag-sergio-pena-convicted","22":"tag-sexual-battery","23":"tag-southeast-georgia","24":"tag-state-attorney-melissa-nelson","25":"tag-state-attorneys-office","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-united-states-of-america","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-usa","32":"tag-wfox","33":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}