Teen sent to adult prison for rape at age 16

Brandon Hubbard had barely turned 16 when he brutally raped a woman he met after a night of drinking in Carson City.

A judge ruled Monday Hubbard will be 24 before he's considered for parole from prison on a 20-year sentence.

"I don't want to be another drunken nobody on the rez," a shackled Hubbard, now 18, said, vowing he'd turn his life around if Judge Michael Griffin gave him probation or a lesser sentence than eight to 20 years.

But Griffin, who spoke of a "haunting" statement made by the victim when she told police she spit out her own blood during the assault to leave evidence behind, couldn't get past the brutality of the crime.

"There's lines that can't be crossed," he said in sentencing Hubbard to the maximum on a charge of attempted sexual assault. "This is a line you crossed that can't be discounted in any fashion."

According to court documents, Hubbard, who is 6 feet, 1 inch tall, met the victim at a Carson City bar on Telegraph Street on the evening of Aug. 2, 2002, one month after his 16th birthday. Later that evening, they ran into each other at another bar on Winnie Lane.

The victim said Hubbard then lured her across the street and raped her for the first time.

Hubbard repeatedly assaulted her in various locations over the course of three hours, beating her and walking her around the westside neighborhood.

From the back yard of a home on Michael Drive, the woman was able to escape and flag down a passing car. She and the motorist found a sheriff's deputy at 6:30 a.m.

On April 21, Hubbard pleaded guilty to one count of attempted sexual assault. In exchange for the plea, four counts of sexual assault, two counts of battery with intent to commit sexual assault and kidnapping were dismissed

The victim, a single mother, read from a statement Monday, addressing Hubbard directly.

"What a precious moment that must have been for you to have a 22-year-old woman begging for her life from you," she said. "I sit up here looking at you, Brandon, and the scariest reality to me is that you won't admit it, not to me, not even to yourself.

"It's scary that I'm the only person that has seen this sick, horrible person in you."

But in his statement to the court, Hubbard appeared to take some responsibility.

"This wasn't my family's fault, this wasn't (the victim's fault)," he said. "This whole thing could have been avoided if I had thought before."

Defense attorney Kay Ellen Armstrong was visibly upset by the case, saying Hubbard should never have been certified as an adult.

"The tragedy in this case is that the law has changed since he was arrested. This case should have been in juvenile court," she said.

She noted a new law requires a juvenile defendant to have a prior criminal conviction before he or she can be tried as an adult. Hubbard has no such conviction, she said.

"I never do death penalty cases, and I will never do a kid certified as an adult again," Armstrong said tearfully, noting she's known Hubbard since he was in third grade with her son. "I just think the system is wrong."

Contact F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.