Life sentence stands for man convicted of raping 6-year-old

Published 2:47 pm Monday, March 9, 2026

The conviction and life sentence of a Lake Charles man convicted of raping a 6-year-old girl will stand.

Josue Manuel Soto-Rodriguez was convicted by an unanimous jury on April 1, 2025, after a one-day trial.

During the trial, the girl testified Soto-Rodriguez made her touch him with her mouth and described “how he made her head go up and down.” She also said Soto-Rodriguez took off her pants as well as his and she saw his “body part.”

The girl said the crime occurred over a weekend in June 2022 while her brother, sister and grandmother were in another part of the house.

The girl’s mother testified she had dropped her children off at the home so that she could tour a college campus out of town. She said when she returned, her daughter said her “area” was hurting and was “crying to leave instead of begging to stay.”

The mother said a few days later, while on the phone, she mentioned Soto-Rodriguez’s name and her daughter made “strange gestures” as if she were performing oral sex. The mother recorded video of her daughter making the gestures, which was played for jurors. In the video, the mother asks the girl why she is making the gestures and she says Soto-Rodriguez’s name.

The mother testified after making the video, she drove to the grandmother’s house and told her about the gestures. The grandmother then asked the girl “whether her clothes were on or off during the incident.” The girl told her she was naked.

The mother testified the grandmother then went inside the home, grabbed a gun and made her way to the backyard where she heard her wailing. Soto-Rodriguez, she said, was awakened by the wailing and went outside to see what was wrong. She said the three of them left him without saying a word to him.

The grandmother would later testify she had never seen the girl do the gesture before that day, that it was “nothing that we teach her,” and that she was “shocked” to see it.

The girl’s mother said by the time police officers conducted forensic interviews with the child and a sexual assault exam was conducted, Soto-Rodriguez had fled the state. He was later arrested in Philadelphia.

Otis Jacobs Jr., the senior program coordinator at the Children’s Advocacy Center who conducted the girl’s forensic interview, testified the girl told him that Soto-Rodriguez “tried to go up and down in her mouth and area.” He said the girl also colored the vagina on the anatomical drawing she was given and he made a note that said, “used (his) finger inside this part, but it hurt.”

Tammy Vincent, a registered nurse and certified sexual assault nurse examiner who performed the girl’s exam, said the test occurred a week after the incident so no biological evidence could be collected. She did cite redness.

Soto-Rodriguez chose not to call any witnesses and did not testify on his own behalf.

In his appeal, Soto-Rodriguez contends the victim’s statements to her mother — recorded using her mother’s smartphone — should not have been admitted into evidence because doing so deprived him of a fair trial. He also claimed the evidence was insufficient to prove he committed first-degree rape.

The Louisiana 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal ruled those contentions were without merit and affirmed the conviction and sentence.

“Given the explicit and consistent detail (the girl) gave to her mother, her interviewers, and the jury regarding her abuse; the videos of (the girl) imitating oral sex and saying Soto-Rodriguez’s name; and the fact Soto-Rodriguez left for Philadelphia, the jury found (the girl’s) testimony credible enough to find Soto-Rodriguez guilty even without any biological evidence to consider.”