By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
A Guatemalan citizen living in the country illegally admitted Tuesday to burglarizing a home on Birch Avenue last year and raping the female resident in her sleep., Pedro Arias-Santiago, appearing in state Superior Court in Trenton, also pleaded guilty to burglarizing another residence on the same street two weeks prior to the rape, to harass an occupant of the house., His admission to the offenses came as part of a plea bargain that calls for him to get seven years in prison f0r the rape and five years, to run concurrently, for the burglary, at sentencing scheduled for May 26. He will be deported after completing his prison sentence, said Michelle Gasparian, supervising assistant Mercer County Prosecutor and chief of the special victims unit., The victims were not in court. He has been held in the Mercer County Correction Center since his arrest., Less than a year ago, Arias-Santiago was picked up by Princeton Police and charged with first-degree aggravated sexual assault and related offenses for the rape and burglary that occurred in the overnight hours of June 28 to June 29. The 28-year-old victim woke up to Arias-Santiago raping her, fled the house and called 911, police said at the time., Princeton Police said he was captured with articles of her clothing, including undergarments, and that he had come through an unlocked door., “I just opened (the) door and went in,” said Arias-Santiago, who admitted he did not know his victim. He said she was sleeping when he came upon her., He admitted hugging and kissing the woman, identified in court by her initials. Gasparian, though, pressed him to disclose the full extent of what he had done by asking him if had (committed sexual intercourse) with the victim without her permission. He admitted he had., In the other case, he admitted burglarizing a house, in which the female victim was house sitting, on June 14., Arias-Santiago, 26, was aided by a Spanish interpreter during his appearance before Superior Court Judge Peter E. Warshaw, sitting in Trenton. The judge went over the plea bargain in painstaking detail and, when at one point, Arias-Santiago indicated he wanted to speak to an immigration lawyer about the impact the guilty plea would have on his status, it appeared the deal might get put on hold., But after conferring with his attorney, assistant deputy public defender Jenna Casper, he went through with it. The attorney said she had spoken with an immigration lawyer in her office and shared with Arias-Santiago everything that lawyer had told her., In court, Arias-Santiago said he had six years of education and no criminal record. His then-landlord said last year that Arias-Santiago, a day laborer, had been staying in an apartment on Leigh Avenue for three months. He had a brother living there as well, the landlord had said. He also has an alias, Pedro Olegario, according to court records., His case, coming at a time amid a focus during the presidential campaign about crime by illegal immigrants and sanctuary cities, had caught the attention of conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who tweeted on her Twitter account about him last year.
