Man gets prison sentence for ‘brutal attack’ and rape of girlfriend in South Lake Tahoe
An El Dorado Superior Court judge sentenced a man to 60 years and four months to life in prison for a “brutal attack” on his then girlfriend, choking her and cutting her with scissors over two days before raping her, prosecutors said.
Edgar Bringas-Zavala was sentenced Feb. 18 by judge Suzanne Kingsbury, the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday in a news release. On Tuesday, Bringas-Zavala, 47, remained in custody at the El Dorado County Jail awaiting transfer to a state prison, jail records show.
After deliberating for about 45 minutes, a jury on Jan. 19 found Bringas-Zavala guilty of rape, two counts of domestic violence causing injury, false imprisonment and making criminal threats, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors have said Bringas-Zavala committed a “brutal attack” on the woman, choking her, smothering her and beating her, along with cutting her with scissors and threatening to kill her with a butcher knife before cutting off her clothes and raping her.
Bringas-Zavala was arrested in June 2020 after the victim reported the crime to the South Lake Tahoe Police Department.
Prosecutors have called Bringas-Zavala a “career woman-abuser” who has served multiple prison sentences for previous convictions. Bringas-Zavala was released after serving a 10-year prison sentence less than a year before the 2020 rape occurred.
During his three-week trial, the victim and four other people victimized by Bringas-Zavala testified about their violent encounters with him and how they broke the cycle of violence, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The judge “had never seen a victim be so frightened during her testimony that she literally shook the judge’s bench,” the prosecutors said in the news release.
Bringas-Zavala’s former girlfriend also spoke in court during his sentencing hearing last month, and the other domestic violence victims were in attendance.
Deputy District Attorney Kassie Cardullo prosecuted the case against Bringas-Zavala, and the case was investigated by the South Lake Tahoe police and the District Attorney’s Office.
This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 2:41 PM.
