Comal Co. man gets over 100 years in prison for sexual abuse of family member

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) — A 48-year-old Comal County man has been sentenced to over 100 years in prison because of his long-running inappropriate relationship with his young family member.

Comal County prosecutors say Richard Alvarado began sexually abusing a family member when she was just five years old.

During the trial, the victim said the abuse started when Alvarado would take her to a secluded outhouse on the family property and would masturbate in front of her.  She stated that Alvarado would force her to sit on a stump and watch him.  He threatened to take her away from her family if she ever told anyone.

The victim said that when she was six years old, Alvarado would lure her into his room by asking if she wanted to play with toys.  But he would instead put on porn and try to mimic the scenes with the young girl.

When she was eight, Alvarado would start trying to physically have sex with the victim.

The victim disclosed the abuse when she was 17.

The Comal County Sheriff’s Office began investigating.  During the investigation, detectives got an audio recording of the victim confronting Alvarado in a phone call where he openly discussed with her what happened, even acknowledging what he had done was wrong.

He blamed it on an imbalance in his brain in that phone call.

When detectives asked him about what had been going on, he denied the allegations and called the victim a liar with a big imagination.  He even stated that he was a good father figure for the girl, adding that he wanted the girl to feel like she was safe around him and was someone he could trust.

Investigators then shared the taped phone call between Alvarado and the victim.

A Comal County jury found him guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of indecency by contact and one count of indecency by exposure.

He was sentenced by a jury to 99 years for each of the aggravated sexual assault charges, 20 years each for the indecency by contact charges and 10 years for the indecency by exposure charge; all to be served concurrently.

During a pre-sentencing investigation report, Alvarado stated that he had a sickness and that he was a pedophile.  The judge determined that the man was a danger to little girls and took one of Alvarado’s 20 year sentences and stacked it on top of one of his 99 year sentences, meaning he would be imprisoned for 119 years.