DEBRA BARAYUGA / DBARAYUGA@STARBULLETIN.COM Peter Vierra received a 20-year prison sentence for sexual assaults on a girl over a five-year period.

---

Child’s rapist
gets 20 years

The girl got pregnant
after years of abuse by
her mother's boyfriend

She was only 7 years old when her mother's boyfriend started sexually abusing her.

And she was only 12 when she became pregnant from the sexual abuse.

Yesterday, the Makaha man who stole her childhood was sentenced to 20 years in prison, a punishment that was too lenient, according to the girl's family.

While Peter Vierra apologized to the girl during sentencing, her family said it was "too little, too late" and wanted him to serve more time, said Deputy Prosecutor Lori Wada, who had asked the court for a 285-year sentence.

"This is about trust, an innocence shattered," Wada said. "We're not happy with the sentence. We're disappointed."

She said she will ask the Hawaii Paroling Authority to order Vierra to serve a full sentence before he can be paroled.

Vierra pleaded guilty in May to 12 counts of first-degree sexual assault, each punishable by a maximum 20-year term, and nine counts of third-degree sexual assault, each carrying a five-year prison term.

Wada's request for an extraordinary sentence was based on the repetitive nature of the assaults, which began when the girl was 7 years old, and continued until age 12, when she became pregnant with Vierra's child. Wada also argued Vierra deserved a longer sentence because the girl had been traumatized by being torn from her family. Her newborn son was placed in foster care.

"No normal child would have to endure the reported sexual abuse and sexual assaults, let alone being pregnant at a time when she has no understanding of what's happening with her body," Wada said.

The girl's mother, Vierra's former girlfriend, wept as she called him a pedophile, a thief of the worst kind who steals a family's trust.

"This is a crime against humanity itself, going against everything good and just," she said.

Vierra violated the sacred bond between a parent and child because he was the only father figure her daughter knew, she said.

When she discovered her daughter was pregnant in September 2003, Vierra acted as if nothing had happened, she said. And he continued to deny his paternity until test results showed with 99.9 percent certainty that he was the father.

The girl had told no one of the assaults because Vierra told her "they would get into trouble," prosecutors said.

In a letter to the court that was read by the girl's aunt, the girl wrote: "I just want to say, thanks to you, I lost the thing I cherished most and that was my childhood. I don't get to be a normal teenager now, I am a young mom because of what you did to me."

Later in the letter, however, she tells Vierra she forgives him. But while the girl is forgiving and now seems happy, "we adults know better," Wada said.

Deputy Public Defender William Bento said Vierra was not making excuses for what happened and took responsibility by pleading guilty to the charges without asking for a deal.

Bento opposed the extended sentences, arguing that the statutory maximum of 20 years on each of the first-degree sexual assaults, to be served at the same time, is sufficient. Besides, the parole board will not release him until he has successfully completed sex offender treatment, he said.

In sentencing him to 20 years, Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario also ordered Vierra to serve a mandatory minimum of six years and eight months as a repeat offender. Vierra was on probation for a theft conviction at the time he began sexually assaulting the girl.