Suspect admits to assault

A 31-year-old man accused of kidnapping and raping a 13-year-old Henderson girl on her way home from school acknowledged in court that he assaulted the teenager.

Sergio Hugo Hernandez pleaded guilty Thursday to battery with intent to commit sexual assault and lewdness with a child under 14 in District Judge Stewart Bell's courtroom.

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped more serious charges pending against him, including first-degree kidnapping and sexual assault with a minor.

"I think he was looking at 30 to 40 years minimum -- and he agreed -- if he went to trial," said Dan Bunin, Hugo Hernandez' defense attorney.

Hugo Hernandez faces a minimum of 10 years to life in prison for the lewdness count. But prosecutor Lisa Luzaich said she plans to ask Bell to run that count consecutively with the battery charge, which carries a sentence of five years to life, at the January sentencing.

He was supposed to have entered his plea Wednesday, but the hearing was delayed a day because Hugo Hernandez did not want to say in front of other inmates what he had done, Luzaich said.

But she said Bell declined to make a special exception, and Hugo Hernandez confirmed before a dozen or so inmates Thursday that he had choked and sexually assaulted the girl.

Offenders associated with child molestation charges often are attacked by other inmates in jail or prison, Bunin said. Other judges will allow such defendants to plead or be sentenced after the other inmates have been escorted out of the courtroom, Bunin said.

Hugo Hernandez is being held in the North Las Vegas federal jail because he illegally re-entered the United States after having been deported to his native country, Mexico, Luzaich said.

"Hopefully, he's not going to be deported until after his 10-to-life" in prison, Luzaich said.

Bunin said whatever sentence Hugo Hernandez receives in federal court for illegally re-entering the United States will run concurrently to the sentence in the Clark County case.

According to a Henderson police report, the teen had been waiting for her mother to pick her up at Windmill Parkway and Arroyo Grande Boulevard in January because she had missed the bus home from school. Hugo Hernandez forced her into his truck and choked her until she passed out, the police report said.

He took her to a remote area and choked her repeatedly when she tried to fight him off, the report said.

She told police she awoke after the suspect had sexually assaulted her and ran for help.

Police found sperm on the girl's clothing and used that to establish a DNA profile.

Contact reporter K.C. Howard at khoward@reviewjournal.com or (702) 380-1039.