Norwich man gets three years in prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting girl
Oct. 17—A New London Superior Court judge on Monday sentenced a Norwich man to three years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing his adopted daughter, a girl who had also suffered physical abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother.
Emilio Lisboa, 46, had pleaded guilty to the charges of risk of injury to a minor, or illegal sexual contact with a victim under the age of 16. New London Superior Court Judge Hillary Strackbein sentenced Lisboa to three years in prison followed by 10 years of probation. Lisboa will be required to register as a sexual offender when he is released. He also is permanently barred from any contact with the victim in the case, who is now an adult.
The plea agreement had come on the eve of a trial and after months of negotiations with the defense, said Assistant State's Attorney Theresa Ferryman, who prosecuted the case.
Lisboa was initially charged by Norwich police with first-degree sexual assault following investigation into claims by the victim made to a neighbor, who was also a church pastor, in 2016. The neighbor called police. The victim, who was 16 at the time, claimed she had been sexually assaulted by Lisboa since the age of 11 and the assaults had continued over five years.
The girl told witnesses that Lisboa had raped her and "offered protection from the mother's abuse, money and candy so she would not tell," according to the arrest warrant affidavit in the case.
Lisboa, who was arrested on March 23, 2018 and had been free after posting a $200,000 bond in the long-pending case, was led out of the New London courtroom in handcuffs on Monday. The victim was not present in the courtroom.
In addition to the sexual assault claims, the victim claimed she was deprived of food and water, physically assaulted with belts, broomsticks and other items and taken to the emergency room nine times for injuries inflicted by her mother.
Her adoptive mother, Lilliam Mateo-Rolon, denied the claims and took her case to trial in 2018. She was found guilty by a jury of risk of injury to a minor and cruelty to persons and sentenced to two years in prison.
At the trial, the victim testified she was adopted as a toddler in Puerto Rico and treated differently than her adopted parents' biological children — forced to do all of the family chores, denied second servings of food and so hungry at times that she ate food from the trash and made Kool-Aid with toilet water.
"Instead of a mother you were an abuser. You hit me and kicked me and took pleasure in doing it," the victim wrote in a victim impact statement read to the court at Mateo-Rolon's sentencing in 2019.
