Homeless Man Battling Disability Pleads Guilty to Sexual Assault, Receives 3-Month Prison Sentence

A homeless man who is battling a disability has been convicted of a sex crime and sentenced to prison.  Fifty-one-year-old Morgan Diego appeared in the Belize City Magistrate’s Court today, charged with a single count of sexual assault against a minor. Diego wasted no time in pleading guilty to the offense but contended that he was being accused of grabbing the minor’s buttocks when all he did was “give her a pat.” Before accepting his guilty plea, the magistrate asked him if he was aware of the severity of the crime and that it had a maximum penalty of five years in prison, to which he answered yes. The Magistrate sentenced him to three months in prison, taking into consideration his early guilty plea, and the fact that he acknowledged his wrongdoing. The seventeen-year-old minor told police that she was buying ice cream on Albert Street on August 16, when Diego came up behind her asking for money. She said she had dropped twenty-five cents and when she went to pick it up Diego grabbed her on the buttocks.