Sexual assault on a little girl: a fugitive who faked his death caught 10 years later in Colombia

A rapist from Saint-Hyacinthe who fled to Colombia for a decade, even pretending to be dead, noted that justice can have a very long arm. After being arrested and extradited from the country, he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a young girl.

José Alirio Vasquez’s troubles with the law date back to February 2011, when he was accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. The abuse continued for several months until the victim became pregnant by him. The rapist was, at the time, in his fifties.

Vasquez was at large during court proceedings. But by the time the court received DNA evidence of his abuse, he had already fled to Colombia.

An arrest warrant was issued against him at the Saint-Hyacinthe courthouse for failing to appear in court. No one heard from him for years.

False deaths

Then around 2017, the accused’s wife, who was still in Quebec, received a death notice for her husband. However, she had not notified the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions.

“What she will explain to us is that in Colombia this type of document can be obtained. So for her, anything is possible. Whether he is alive or actually dead,” explained the Crown prosecutor, Ms.^e Marie-Claude Morin.

Police officers therefore continued their hunt to find the fugitive. An Interpol red notice was notably issued to find him, according to our information.

In 2022, Vasquez’s run has finally come to an end. He was arrested in Colombia by local authorities and then imprisoned in prison. It was from this moment that he noticed that Canadian justice could have the long arm: he was finally extradited last March after procedures which lasted months.

Scared

At the time, the victim was so frightened that she lied to her mother that she had had sex with a stranger. Then, during an interview with an investigator from the Sûreté du Québec, she ended up identifying her attacker “from the tip of her lips”. The little girl, whose identity is protected by the court, had to undergo an abortion.

José Alirio Vasquez has been detained since his return to Quebec. He pleaded guilty this summer to the sexual assaults. He was also due to receive his sentence on Friday.

However, he made an about-face when the Crown and defense were ready to present a joint sentence suggestion to Judge Sacha Blais.

“I didn’t quite understand last time. I wasn’t listening well,” he said, speaking with difficulty in French. However, a court interpreter was present at all hearings.

“Please have mercy on me, I am very sick,” Vasquez then begged the judge.

His lawyer filed a motion to cease occupation. The file was handed over in January, while the accused found a new lawyer.