photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Jose Garcia Melgarejo appears at his sentencing hearing on Friday, Dec. 6, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A Lenexa man was sentenced to prison on Friday in connection with a sexual assault, much to the surprise of his attorney and the prosecutor as the judge declined to grant probation.

The man, Jose Garcia Melgarejo, 41, pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of aggravated sexual battery as part of a plea agreement that reduced his charge from one felony count of aggravated criminal sodomy, as the Journal-World reported. The amended charge reduced Garcia Melgarejo’s minimum potential sentence from over 12 years to less than three.

The charges relate to an incident on Oct. 7, 2021, at the Prairie Park Nature Center, 2730 Harper St., when Garcia Melgarejo sexually touched the woman without her consent “while she was overcome by force or fear.”

Judge Stacey Donovan sentenced Garcia Melgarejo to 32 months in prison after rejecting the terms of a plea agreement between Garcia Melgarejo’s attorney, Veronica Dersch, and the state, represented by Assistant District Attorney Samantha Foster. Garcia Melgarejo will also have to register as an offender for 25 years.

Dersch had asked the court to grant Garcia Melgarejo probation and to suspend the prison term. She said that Garcia Melgarejo had agreed to the plea agreement because the state agreed to support the departure.

Donovan said she would be willing to consider the request but that Dersch had failed to provide evidence to the court that a mental health treatment program was available for Garcia Melgarejo that would be more beneficial to the community in reforming him than prison.

Dersch asked for a continuance so that Garcia Melgarejo could find and enroll in a treatment program, but Donovan declined to give him more time because the case had been pending for over three years, which was plenty of time for Garcia Melgarejo to engage in treatment. Foster had objected to the continuance but asked Donovan to follow the plea agreement that recommended probation.

Dersch objected to Donovan’s ruling and said that Garcia Melgarejo had only agreed to the plea agreement in good faith that he would not go to prison, but Donovan affirmed her decision.

“The court can find no reason to grant a border box finding,” Donovan said.

Prior to his sentence, the survivor of Garcia Melgarejo’s assault told the court that since the assault she is afraid to be alone and is now on medication for her mental health.

“The trauma of this experience will be with me for the rest of my life,” the woman said.

She said that she had met Garcia Melgarejo for a date that night and that he had lied to her, saying he was a law enforcement officer, and had shown her a gun before assaulting her. She said that after she believed he was an officer she thought “things would get a lot worse.”

After the hearing Garcia Melgarejo was taken into custody. He had been free on a $10,000 bond.