Fifteen years jail time for sex on the beach.
It’s the maximum prison time the prosecution could ask the judge to sentence a Bradenton couple a jury convicted May 4 of lewd and lascivious exhibition in front of a child.
A sentencing hearing was not set as of The Islander press time.
As to defendant Jose Ben Caballero, 40, Judge Gilbert A. Smith Jr. would have had no choice but to order it had the state followed through on a notice in the court file.
However, according to Assistant State Attorney Anthony DaFonseca, who with State Attorney Ed Brodsky, tried the case, the state won’t be using the re-offender law that subjects Caballero — previously convicted of cocaine trafficking and released in 2013 after 8 years in prison — to the full 15 years because of his prior conviction and recent release.
DaFonseca said he expects to tender a two-and-half year or three-year sentence recommendation to the judge at Caballero’s sentencing.
For co-defendant Elissa Alvarez, 20, he’ll likely request 60 days in jail, followed by probation, he said. Mandatory sentencing does not apply in her case.
The state offered both co-defendants similar sentences in plea bargaining before trial, according to DaFonseca.
As felons convicted of the lewd and lascivious offense, both defendants are required to register as sex offenders, and “there’s nothing the state can do about that,” DaFonseca said.
Defendants’ attorney, Ron Kurpiers of Tampa, said he warned them of the potentially harsh penalties.
He recommended the plea offers, which Kurpiers said they rejected because “they felt they hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Kurpiers said “the punishment, in this case, does not fit the crime” and pointed to the video as the most damaging to their defense.
“It all comes back to the video. I had that conversation with my clients a hundred times,” Kurpiers said.
Caballero and Alvarez’s sex romp on the beach July 20, 2014, was videotaped by Victoria Champ, a great-grandmother whose family from West Virginia and Brandon met for a reunion on Cortez Beach in Bradenton Beach. Small children were present.
Champ’s video — which went viral on FoxNews and other media outlets last summer — was played for the jury.
The jury’s 15-minute guilty verdict also grew legs, reaching the UK and Australia — and spawned a debate about mandatory sentencing and the sex offender registration for such cases.
The case was Conan O’Brien’s last line in his May 5 monologue on TBS’ “Conan Weeknights.”
O’Brien joked, “Little story in Florida. A man was found guilty for having sex on a beach and it only took a jury 15 minutes to reach a verdict. The jury foreman said, much like the defendant, we finished quickly.”