3rd Man Sentenced In SMU Student's Rape
DALLAS (AP) - The last of three men to be sentenced in the rape at gunpoint of a Southern Methodist University student received a 25-year prison term Thursday after asking the forgiveness of their victim.
Luis Zuniga was sentenced in state district court in Dallas under terms of a plea agreement and testifying against one of his co-defendants. Before receiving the sentence, he asked his 20-year-old victim to forgive him. According to The Dallas Morning News, the woman asked her assailant if he would change. Satisfied that he would, she agreed.
"I don't think what you did to me that night defines you as a person," Monika Korra told him. "I think you made a mistake. You have to promise me that you want to change. You have to hold onto it every day."
The Associated Press does not usually publish the names of sexual assault victims. The newspaper, however, reported that Korra has gone public and written to be published in her native Norway a book about her ordeal to "kill the silence" surrounding rape.
Arturo Arevalo and Alfonso Zuniga have both received life sentences for their part in the assault. Testimony showed Korra was grabbed off the street as she was leaving a party and raped repeatedly in a sport utility vehicle before being dumped near Fair Park.
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