Alexander Ramos-Pacheco spent several years beating his girlfriend.
He shocked her with a stun gun so many times she has scars from the electrical burns. Ramos-Pacheco would threaten to kill the woman, punch her nearly every day in front of their kids and would turn up the stereo so the neighbors couldn't hear her scream.
The Lancaster man pleaded guilty to those crimes. And he tried to convince a state Superior Court panel that a Lancaster County judge punished him too severely by
imposing a 13- to 30-year prison sentence.
No dice.
The state court rejected Ramos-Pacheco's appeal in an opinion Judge Victor P. Stabile issued this week.
Ramos-Pacheco's claims that county Judge Donald R. Totaro didn't adequately consider several factors, including his mild mental retardation and that he is a seventh-grade drop-out, just don't merit a reduction of his sentence for those continual assaults, Stabile found. Totaro called Ramos-Pacheco's acts "sadistic."
As Totaro noted in an opinion opposing Ramos-Pacheco's state court appeal, Ramos-Pacheco claimed he essentially tortured his girlfriend because he thought she was cheating on him.
Stabile cited Totaro's opinion in the state court decision to reject Ramos-Pacheco's plea. His prison sentence is legal and appropriate, even if Ramos-Pacheco doesn't like it, Stabile found.
City police said that, in addition to the 20 to 30 stun gun hits and almost daily beatings, Ramos-Pacheco choked his victim with a belt until she blacked out, held a gun to her head and repeatedly threatened to kill her and their children.
Ramos-Pacheco, now 28, pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated and simple assault, stalking, illegal use of a stun gun and making terroristic threats after jury selection began for his trial.
When given a chance to speak, Ramos-Pacheco "showed no remorse, but rather an indifference to the crimes he had committed," the county judge wrote. Also, Totaro noted that Ramos-Pacheco told him of the three conditions he had placed on the woman: "never cheat on me, never lie to me, and never stop loving me."
Ramos-Pacheco also is serving a 10-year federal prison sentence for crossing state lines to sexually abuse a 15-year-old girl he met online. He must begin serving his prison sentence for the assaults on his girlfriend after he completes his federal jail term.