Diego Martin Peña
(Whitfield County DA’s Office)
A local man who abused and impregnated a child finally received his punishment in Murray County Superior Court recently.
The Chatsworth Times has reported that Diego Martin Peña of White was sentenced to 25 years in prison without the possibility of parole followed by life on probation for aggravated child molestation, with concurrent 15-year sentences on the child molestation and statutory rape charges on which he was convicted in October.
Peña was eligible to be sentenced to life in prison on the aggravated child molestation charge plus up to 20 years on each of the child molestation and statutory rape charges.
The investigation began in 2012 when the victim was 15 after reports were presented through Murray County Schools. The victim was pregnant at the time but it was initially believed that the father of the child was a classmate of similar age.
In 2014, after the victim had moved out of state, paternity testing revealed that Peña was the child’s father. That revelation led the Murray County Sheriff’s Office to reopen their investigation and request additional DNA testing through the Georgia State Crime Lab.
The district attorney said the sexual acts occurred between 2008 and 2011 when the victim was 11 to 14 years of age. The District Attorney’s Office sought an indictment once the Georgia DNA testing was completed in early 2015.