Man sentenced to 5 years for molesting middle school girl

A Havre man was sentenced to five years in state custody for molesting a middle-school aged girl, to run along a suspended sentence in another case.

Isaac A. Chapa, born in 1993, was charge with sexual assault and sexual intercourse without consent for assaulting a girl Oct. 24, 2012, while he was at a house party in her residence.

In state District Court in Havre, Judge Dan Boucher sentenced Chapa to five years with the state Department of Corrections in the second plea agreement Chapa had entered — he withdrew his guilty plea in the first — with Boucher ordering the sentence to run at the same time as the three-year suspended sentence he is serving for burglary.

Chapa was charged after the victim told the investigating police officer that Chapa was at a party being held by the owner of the house in which she lives. She said he came into her bedroom where she was trying to sleep, laid on top of her on her bed and began kissing her.

The girl said she tried to leave, but Chapa grabbed her and pulled her back, and began feeling and touching her. She said he asked her to have sex with him, but when she told him no, he continued to touch her.

The girl told officers she could not tell them the exact date of the incident, but that it was shortly before Halloween.

Officers were able to set the exact date because Chapa was arrested Oct. 24 at that residence for violations of conditions of release set on his bond in the other case.

In that case, he was charged with two felony counts of burglary for breaking into houses and with a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief and two misdemeanor counts of theft stemming from the breakins.

Officers arrested Chapa Oct. 24 when they investigated a call that he had been drinking and fighting at party at the girl’s residence.

Chapa originally was sentenced to a deferred imposition of sentence recommended in the plea agreement on the burglary charge. That was later revoked and the suspended sentence imposed for violating the conditions of his release, last June at the same time as the first hearing on his first plea agreement.

Boucher warned Chapa that he was likely not to follow the recommendation in the first plea agreement for the sexual assault charge, a four-year suspended sentence. Chapa withdrew his plea.

In the latest plea agreement, the agreement recommended four years with the state Department of Corrections, to run at the same time as his suspended sentence.

Instead Boucher imposed a five-year sentence with the DOC, to run at the same time as the burglary sentence.