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Sex offender had been given excessive term

It appeared on the Facebook account of a Peters Township school board member.

A sex offender who was improperly sentenced to an excessive prison term three separate times by the same judge was ordered to time served and granted parole on Friday.

The new three- to six-year prison sentence won’t really matter for Gabino Bernal, though, as he is being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is expected to be deported back to Mexico after he is returned to the State Correctional Institution Camp Hill.

Bernal, 41, was one of three sex offenders who were granted new sentencing hearings by the state Superior Court in recent months and whose cases were reassigned to a new judge, after the appellate court found that now-retired Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Donna Jo McDaniel had improperly sentenced the men.

In Bernal’s case, a jury found him guilty in August 2013 of unlawful contact, indecent assault of a child younger than 13 and corruption of minors. He was accused of sexually assaulting the 8-year-old daughter of his girlfriend in the fall of 2003. The victim testified that Bernal threatened to hurt her disabled brother if she told anyone what was happening.

Bernal has denied the accusations.

The aggravated guideline range sentence for those counts, run consecutively, called for three years in prison.

Judge McDaniel ordered him to serve nine to 18 years.

The state Superior Court remanded the case to Judge McDaniel for resentencing, finding that she had mistakenly graded a charge as a first-degree felony, when it was a third-degree felony.

When she resentenced Bernal in

2015, she ordered him to serve six to 17 years in prison — still higher than an aggravated range sentence.

The state Superior Court again remanded the case for a new sentencing, chastising Judge McDaniel for failing to explain why she departed from the guidelines.

When Judge McDaniel resentenced Bernal the third time — in June 2017 — she gave him the exact same penalty.

In its final opinion on the Bernal case, the Superior Court said that Judge McDaniel did not give the defendant a meaningful hearing and failed to let him or his attorney speak. It also said the judge inappropriately criticized Bernal’s public defender for vigorously representing her client.

The court wrote in its opinion that the conduct “casts ample doubt on Judge McDaniel’s ability to remain impartial and to impose upon Bernal an individualized sentence tailored to him and the facts of his case.”

When the Superior Court sent the case back in December, it ordered that it be assigned to a new judge.

Judge McDaniel retired in January after 33 years on the bench.

On Friday, Bernal appeared before Judge Mark V. Tranquilli.

After recounting what he called the “tortured history” of the case, the judge listened to testimony from Bernal’s wife, as well as the victim and her stepmother.

Lillian Bernal told the court the impact that her husband’s arrest has had on her and her family. For the first 4½ years of her husband’s incarceration, she said she did not tell their children, ages 13 and 11, where their father was. Instead, she told them he was in Mexico.

“It devastated them,” she said. “My heart is broken.”

The victim, who was 8 at the time of the abuse in 2003, told Judge Tranquilli that she will never be the same as other young women her age.

“Gabino may be able to get out and get a fresh start in Mexico,” she said. “I will never get that fresh start.”

The woman, who has had to return to court repeatedly, said to the judge, “I ask that this be the end. I ask that I don’t have to come back anymore.”

Her stepmother reiterated to Judge Tranquilli the difficulty of the victim having to relive the abuse each time she had to report for another sentencing “as our justice system seems to be more concerned about the rights of a convicted child predator than us.”

The woman also described the effects the abuse had on the victim.

“She doesn’t like her neck to be touched because it reminded her of his abuse,” she said. “I feel hopeless. I want to take her pain away, and no matter what, I’ll never be able to.”

Assistant District Attorney Ken Harris told Judge Tranquilli that Bernal should be sentenced in the aggravated guideline range.

“This was an 8-year-old,” Mr. Harris said. “It shows how long this kind of hurt lasts. These wounds are still open.”

Assistant Public Defender Victoria Vidt told the judge that Bernal has been a model prisoner during his six years of incarceration. He is a cook at the State Correctional Institution Laurel Highlands, has never had a misconduct and completed both his GED and sex offender classes.

Ms. Vidt said that upon her client’s return to Mexico, where he has several siblings, he plans to find work to send money to his children in the United States.

“Mr. Bernal has been a joy to have as a client,” she said. “He understands what’s going on. He wants to pay the price for his crime and move on.”

After imposing the sentence, Judge Tranquilli urged Bernal to think about the harm his actions had on the victim and her brother, as well as his own children.

“What’s a damn shame about this case is not one, but four kids are paying the price of what you did,” he said. “The ripples are going to be felt by those kids for years to come.

“My prayer, my hope, is that all four of those kids come out of the dark tunnel you put them in and lead a normal life.”