Three years after two women were kidnapped and brutally raped, the third and final Hispanic defendant in the 2008 rapes has been sentenced to 50 years in prison

Vicente Reyes-Carbajal, 23, had pleaded guilty to armed kidnapping, robbery and carjacking. Prosecutors dropped the rape charge in a deal that capped his sentence at 50 years in prison. The defense argued that Reyes-Carbajal's drug use since age 9 contributed to his delinquency and that he needed treatment. He had sniffed glue and gasoline, he had told a psychiatrist. The women said his past is irrelevant. "It's not our fault what he did as a child," one of his victims said at the sentencing hearing. "What is important is what he did to us. Our lives will never be the same." Police say that on Aug. 16, 2008, Jose Walle, then 13, Rigoberto Moron Martinez, then 20, and Reyes-Carbajal, kidnapped and raped two women from the Docks Bar & Grill in Apollo Beach. Deputies say that the threesome covered the women's mouths with duct tape, kidnapped them in one of their cars, took them to a dirt area near Noonan Road, where the rapes began, then to a Bank of America ATM, to a gas station and, finally, to a field, where the rapes continued. Walle was sentenced to 65 years in prison for the Apollo Beach rapes and 27 years for another in St. Petersburg. Martinez got multiple life sentences for the rapes. The only one left was Reyes-Carbajal, and to avoid another trial, the victims agreed with the plea offer, said Rita Peters, chief of Hillsborough's sex crimes division. Through a Spanish interpreter, Reyes-Carbajal claimed that he repents for everything he did that night. The defense asked for the minimum possible sentence: Just over 16 years. But Circuit Judge Emmett Lamar Battles agreed with the prosecution. He sentenced Reyes-Carbajal to the maximum he was allowed under the agreement. "Mr. Reyes-Carbajal," he said, "you got the only break you're going to get in the case when the state agreed to cap your case at 50 years."