Chelsea man gets five years for raping a girl once a week for a year

A Suffolk Superior Court jury yesterday found Marco Montano, 29, guilty of sexually abusing a neighbor's child from the time she was 9 until almost her 11th birthday.

Superior Court Judge Regina Quinlan sentenced Montano to five years in state prison for the convictions on two counts of statutory rape of a child and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, which says Montano will likely be deported to his native El Salvador when he's released. The DA's office had sought two concurrent 8-to-12 year sentences and five yoears of probation,

Prosecutors said Montano, a friend of the family, began to compliment the girl's appearance in the spring of 2005. Near the end of the school year, though, he began having sex with the girl when her mother was either out or busy with the girl's siblings. According to the DA's office:

While most of the meetings occurred in the stairwell, on a separate occasion, Montano lured the young girl to his room when he knew her parents were not home. On that day, Montano approached the female victim while she was outside riding her bike and had her accompany him to his bedroom where he sexually assaulted her.

Finally, the girl told a 17-year-old cousin about the incidents, and then, in 2006, her mother, who notified police.