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NORRISTOWN — A Philadelphia man was sent to prison on charges he sexually assaulted a woman inside her Cheltenham Township apartment while posing as a maintenance worker for the apartment building in which she resided.
Gilberto Liborio Saguilan, 30, of the 4600 block of Tampa Street, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 4 years and 10 months to 9 years and 8 months in a state correctional facility in connection with an August 2020 incident that occurred at an apartment in the 8400 block of Limekiln Pike, in the Wyncote section of Cheltenham.
Judge Virgil B. Walker also sentenced Saguilan to complete three years’ probation, consecutive to parole. The judge ordered Saguilan to have no contact with the victim.
Additionally, Saguilan faces a lifetime requirement to report his address to state police in order to comply with Pennsylvania’s Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act, formally known as Megan’s Law.
After a four-day trial in May, a jury convicted Saguilan of felony charges of sexual assault without consent, burglary and criminal trespass in connection with the incident. The jury acquitted Saguilan of a charge of rape.
“This was every woman’s nightmare,” said Assistant District Attorney Bradley Deckel, adding the lengthy sentence sends a message to the community that such conduct won’t be tolerated. “It tells the victim in this case that she was heard and lets her know that the court has heard her, as well as the jury.”
The victim did provide victim impact testimony during the hearing.
“She said that she has trouble trusting new people and believing them at face value as she had done before,” Deckel said.
Deckel argued for a sentence of 7½ to 15 years in prison for Saguilan, including consecutive prison terms for the charges of sexual assault and burglary.
The judge’s sentence did include consecutive terms for the sexual assault and burglary charges.
“I didn’t get the total I asked for but the judge recognized that there were two distinct crimes that happened. She was violated in two different ways, one violated the sanctity of her house, the other violated the sanctity of her body,” Deckel said.
Defense lawyer Joseph Coleman had argued for a sentence of 3 to 6 years in prison for Saguilan.
The investigation began about 4 a.m. on Aug. 19, 2020, when Cheltenham police responded to a local hospital for a report of a woman who had been sexually assaulted. The woman told detectives that she had been assaulted inside her apartment.
The victim reported she was alone in her apartment at 11:30 p.m. when Saguilan, who she believed was a maintenance worker for the apartment building, knocked on her door requesting to enter so he could check for a water leak, according to the criminal complaint filed by Cheltenham Detective Matthew Gonglik.
The woman reported that no leak was found and that Saguilan began pulling off her clothes and forcing himself on her as she told him, “No” several times and tried to push him away from her but was unsuccessful, detectives alleged.
The investigation determined that Saguilan knew a female neighbor of the victim.
Prosecutors said the investigation revealed that Saguilan was not employed as a maintenance worker for the apartment building but had worked for a contractor that had renovated vacant apartments at the complex.
“He should not have been checking for leaks late at night,” Deckel said. “It was deception.”
The woman positively identified Saguilan as her attacker from a photo array shown to her by detectives.
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