“This is one of the most horrendous statements of fact I have ever read,”
Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Tatiana Messina
(CMR) The former minister of a Bridgeport, Connecticut church is facing a 30-year sentence after being convicted of repeatedly raping a girl starting at age 6 over a dozen years. Jamaican Orane Cole (45) is facing deportation after the completion of his sentence.
Orane Cole (45), continued to maintain his innocence through the trial despite admitting to police earlier that he had assaulted the victim for years. Judge Eugene Calistro of the Bridgeport Super Court found no mercy in his judgment.
Police said that Cole, a friend of the girl’s family, began sexually assaulting her when she was a kindergartner and that the assaults continued while she was a student at Sacred Heart University in 2017.
The victim assisted police in collecting the independent evidence they need again him as she got Cole to admit raping her in a recorded telephone call which she turned over to authorities.
As he maintained his innocence even ta sentencing the judge challenged him by reminding him he admitted to police he had sexually assaulted the victim three to four times a month and that sexually abusing her was a way of showing her love.
In one incident, police said Cole went to the girl’s dorm room and forced her to leave with him. He then took her to a wooded area near campus and raped her on the hood of his car. At another time police said he put a knife to the girl’s throat and threatened to kill her unless she obeyed him. He was convicted in March of this year of three counts of first-degree assault after a jury deliberated for only a few hours.
The brave victim faced Cole as she spoke during the hearing.
“You took something from me I can never get back: my innocence,” the woman, now in her 20s, said. “You took me under your wing, not to protect me, but to hurt me over and over again. Mr. Cole, you hurt me so bad.”
Reports are that Cole showed no reaction to the victim's words but continued to maintain his innocence. He shared:
“I’m here to fight for my life,” Cole told Superior Court Judge Eugene Calistro. “I never sexually assaulted her. I’m hurt, disappointed in the (victim).”
Prosecutors said Cole, a former minister at a Bridgeport church, began raping the girl when she was in kindergarten and the assaults continued until 2017 when she was a teenager. A jury convicted him of three counts of first-degree sexual assault in March.
He was charged in February 2018 with aggravated first-degree assault, first-degree unlawful restraint and threatening. Senior Assistant State's Attorney Tatiana Messina shared at that hearing that this was one of the horrendous statements of fact she had ever read. The judge observed that was saying a lot given that she “prosecutes sexual assault cases.”
After prison, Cole would be on probation for 30 years and have to register as a sex offender for the rest of this life. His public defender, Bradford Buchta, said Cole is a Jamaican citizen and likely would face deportation after prison.
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