A man was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Thursday after a jury found him guilty of molesting his niece, a prosecutor said.
The victim’s father, a Pacifica resident, asked San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Sharon Cho to impose the highest possible sentence on Wilfredo Juan Colins for his actions, District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said.
“What this man did to my family is irreversible. We loved him, trusted him, thought he was one of us, and he betrayed us in the worst way. He hurt a child numerous times — that justifies asking for the maximum penalty that the law allows,” the victim’s father said in court.
Colins, 39, of Fremont, was previously sentenced to 17 years in prison. However, he already has about four years of good-time credit in jail, reducing his sentence, Wagstaffe said.
Colins molested his niece from the age of 12 to 16 between September 2018 and March 2021, according to the DA. Colins started molesting the victim when the family lived in Fremont and continued after they moved to Hayward and then Pacifica, Wagstaffe said.
Colins raped the victim again in 2022 and strangled her multiple times, according to Wagstaffe. The victim told her sister, but she didn’t do anything.
A year later, the victim’s parents noticed her grades were dropping and that she was depressed. The victim then told her mother what Colins had been doing to her, and she reported it to the police.
Colins was arrested in January 2023. Colins now must register as a sex offender and is not allowed to contact the victim for 10 years.