Man gets Prison in Naugatuck sex assault

Victim credits Jane Doe No More with helping recoginze abuse

Ramirex-Sanchez

By Bruno Matarazzo Jr.

STAFF WRITER,
Waterbury Republcian-American

NAUGATUCK - For years, a young girl carried a secret she barely understood, afraid to tell loved ones out of fear she would be loved less. She remembered sitting on the couch in a family member's Naugatuck apartment, playing My Little Pony games on a Samsung tablet. Behind her, a man who had recently married her relative moved closer than he should have, touching her inappropriately. She was 7 years old at the time and the abuse progressed over the next two years, getting worse at times.

Whenever she tried to tell someone - her sister, her church community or her biological father - about the "weird" feelings she got from Hector Ramirez-Sanchez, she was dismissed, laughed at or hushed. "When I was a junior in high school, that's when I realized I was abused. I spoke up for the first time and was actually listened to," the victim said in court during Ramirez-Sanchez's sentencing Tuesday at state Superior Court in Waterbury.

At high school, the victim, identified in court only by her initials, said a presentation by Jane Doe No More, a nonprofit that empowers survivors of sexual crimes through education, advocacy and prevention, finally gave her the words for what had happened to her and decided to speak out. Read more