A Houston man has been hit with a 50-year prison stretch after he admitted to kidnapping and raping a 15-year-old girl during a harrowing interstate ordeal, authorities announced. The perpetrator, 33-year-old Wilmer Rivera-Hernandez, pleaded guilty to taking the teen on a date, dragging her across state lines and sexually assaulting her in different locales.
A report from the Houston Chronicle detailed that the kidnapping began in Houston on June 2, 2020, when Rivera-Hernandez, originally from Honduras and living in the U.S. illegally, refused the girl’s pleas to be taken home. Instead, he assaulted her, threatened her family, and commandeered her phone. Authorities said he used choking, drugging, and threats to keep the girl subdued.
The teen reached out for help on three separate occasions—in Texas, Arkansas, and finally Tennessee, where her eventual rescue by authorities would take place. Her first attempt at a cry for help was via a text message sent with a photo of her abductor’s license plate, but unfortunately, law enforcement was not alerted. It wasn’t until her third attempt, reaching out directly to her family, that the Knox County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee rescued her from a truck stop in Knoxville on June 5, 2020, according to Click2Houston.
U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani described Rivera-Hernandez's actions as reprehensible and stated that he should not be allowed to walk among civilized people.
In a statement obtained by the Houston Chronicle, Hamdani further lamented the emotional and psychological toll this crime took on the young victim, transforming her from a young, innocent girl into someone marked by anger, pain, guilt, numbness, depression, and humiliation.
Rivera-Hernandez also concocted a deceitful scheme to evade justice by faking WhatsApp messages, purporting them to be from the victim and recanting her accusations. However, this ploy was quickly uncovered by investigators, leading to additional charges of obstructing justice. Rivera-Hernandez will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the future.
