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Molester receives 10 ½ years
Monday, December 4, 2000 10:00 PM PST
By James Tedford
Printable version
E-mail this articleCATHLAMET --- A 14-year-old girl choked back tears Monday in Wahkiakum County Superior Court as she pleaded for a light sentence for a Cathlamet gillnetter --- the same 48-year-old man who repeatedly drugged and molested her.
Her tears fell to no avail.
As David Tarabochia sat emotionless in orange-and-white striped jail clothes and arm-and-ankle shackles, Judge Joel Penoyar sentenced him to 10 1/2 years in prison.
Tarabochia previously admitted to drugging the victim --- a girl whom he knew --- with Tylenol PM so he could videotape her nude as he violated her. His illicit sex acts spanned seven years.
"This has been going on for so many years. People who have long, ingrained habits have a heck of a time changing them," Penoyar said.
"These are not minor things. This is something that this woman is going to have to live with for the rest of her life. And that's the position you put her in," Penoyar told Tarabochia.
Defense attorney John Hays asked Penoyar to suspend all but six months of Tarabochia's sentence while he underwent three years of treatment for sex offenders.
In support of that option, Tarabochia, a corrections official and several family members, including Tarabochia's ex-wife and his sister, spoke to the judge.
But the hearing took a dramatic turn when the victim addressed the court. With her mother's arm around her, she sobbed and dabbed her reddened eyes with a tissue.
When she said, "I can't ... ," her mother jumped in, saying that her daughter wanted Tarabochia to receive treatment as an alternative to prison.
Then the girl regained her composure.
"I know what he did was wrong. He knows what he did was wrong," she said. "He's the most wonderful person in the whole world, and he's never done anything to hurt me."
That sentiment was rejected by Wahkiakum County Deputy Prosecutor Irene Asai. Shaking her finger at Tarabochia, Asai described him as a serial molester for whom outpatient treatment would be "completely inappropriate."
"As his victim grew older, he did not stop his abuse of her," she said. "He videotaped those acts with her. He videotaped not only this child, but other children as well, to satisfy whatever deviant sexual desires he has."
Asai asked for a 12-year sentence --- the maximum in the state's standard sentencing range --- because Tarabochia, she said, repeatedly flouted rules imposed on him while he awaited the judge's decision.
He pleaded guilty Oct. 16. On the same day, Penoyar granted him work release during daylight hours so he could fish on the Columbia River --- a privilege which Asai argued against. During the previous five years in Wahkiakum County, no convicted sex offender whose victim was a child had enjoyed any freedom pending sentencing.
After Tarabochia reported to jail on one occasion seven and a half hours past his curfew, Penoyar ordered him locked up. That ended two weeks of partial liberty.
Back in jail, Tarabochia resumed acting as if the rules didn't apply to him, Asai said. He left his cell at least once without his orange-and-white jail clothes on, so jail staff restricted his privileges.
Prison is the only thing that might get Tarabochia to take the law seriously and to reform himself, Asai said.
"Sexual deviancy covers the entirety of his adult life. Videotaping of unclothed children has been a part of this defendant's lifestyle for a long time," she said. "This is a defendant who knows he's had a problem for many, many years. He has done absolutely nothing to take care of that problem."
Penoyar agreed with Asai. He said he didn't know about Tarabochia's other alleged victims at the time he granted him work release.
Although Penoyar alluded to other children who appeared in videotapes seized at Tarabochia's home, Wahkiakum County prosecutors filed charges involving only one victim.
When Tarabochia pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree child molestation, second-degree child molestation and sexual exploitation of a minor, Penoyar said he believed the crimes to be akin to voyeurism.
"In fact, the facts were a lot more egregious than we were led to believe," Penoyar said.
Another convicted child molester had been scheduled for sentencing Monday. But Cathlamet resident Rudolfo Lopez, 20, had his sentencing postponed to Dec. 18.
After Tarabochia won his work release in October, Lopez petitioned Penoyar for the same privilege. But the judge denied the request from Lopez, who had pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree child molestation.
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