Tri-Cities massage therapist convicted of rape is deported a 2nd time

A Pasco convicted rapist who’s been in federal detention for 1 1/2 years is being sent back to Mexico after living illegally in the United States.

This is at least the second “removal” of Victor Gutierrez-Jimenez by federal agents in the past 27 years.

The 62-year-old man’s most recent conviction was for sexually assaulting a young adult woman who had come to him with an ankle injury. He claimed to be a “healer” through massage, according to documents in Franklin County Superior Court.

Gutierrez-Jimenez was labeled a “repeat immigration violator” in an Aug. 19 news release by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

The federal agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations did not say when the Mexican citizen would be flown back to his home country, citing security concerns.

He most recently was being housed at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

Agents took him into custody in February 2019 after he finished a one-year, three-month sentence in the Franklin County case.

Gutierrez-Jimenez’s prior order of removal was reinstated at that time, and in March 2020 his final appeal was dismissed by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

“ICE’s mission remains consistent: to identify, arrest and remove aliens who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety,” the news release said, “as well as those who enter the country illegally or otherwise undermine the integrity of our immigration laws and our border control efforts.”

Moved to U.S. at 16

Gutierrez-Jimenez was referred to in the news release as Jimenez-Gutierrez.

The agency also said he has “an extensive criminal history,” though Washington state court records only show a gross misdemeanor DUI in 1991, two second-degree assaults with a gun that same year, and the 2018 rape case.

Gutierrez-Jimenez was born in Colima, Mexico.

Court documents show that Gutierrez-Jimenez told a state psychologist in 2018 that he had moved to the United States for work when he was 16.

He claimed he returned to Mexico several times over the first couple decades to visit his parents and other family members, but that he had not been home for 20 years “due to the rise in violence and his deteriorating healthy,” the psychologist wrote.

His 1991 assault convictions involved a drive-by shooting in Sunnyside.

Gutierrez-Jimenez claimed he had been drinking that day, and that he shot in self-defense after some alleged gang members fired at him first.

He was sentenced to three years in prison, and reportedly served the time in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla and Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell.

Agents with what was then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, discovered Gutierrez-Jimenez in state custody in October 1991, and lodged an immigration detainer on him the following the day.

In June 1992, an immigration judge in Monroe ordered Gutierrez-Jimenez’s removal from the United States. He was transferred into federal custody in June 1993 after completing his state sentence, and four days later was sent back to Mexico through a port of entry in California, according to an ICE official.

Was unlicensed therapist

It is not known when Gutierrez-Jimenez re-entered the United States.

In April 2018 he was living on Coachella Court in Pasco with his wife. The couple now has four adult children and a grandchild.

Gutierrez-Jimenez — who suffers from blindness due to diabetes — said he was working as a massage therapist, or a “healer” of injures as his culture and family history dictates, court documents said. He was practicing without a license in his home.

A woman came to Gutierrez-Jimenez on the recommendation of family.

While she sought treatment for an ankle injury, Gutierrez-Jimenez told her that the foot affects everything in her body and said that her uterus was out of place, documents said.

Gutierrez-Jimenez massaged the woman from her feet to her upper thighs, which she later told detectives had made her feel uncomfortable. Yet she returned to his home two days later because he said she needed more treatment and he sexually assaulted her.

The woman later said she had told Gutierrez-Jimenez he did not have permission to touch her in certain areas. She said she did not know how to react when he assaulted her, but “felt odd” when she left his home, court documents said.

Gutierrez-Jimenez initially denied doing anything wrong or hurting the woman, then admitted that she had told him “no.” He asked for forgiveness from the woman and God, saying he had committed an error, documents said.

Admitted 2 counts of rape

Gutierrez-Jimenez originally was charged with two counts each of second-degree rape and indecent liberties.

One day after his arrest, an agent with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations “encountered” Gutierrez-Jimenez at the Franklin County jail and added an immigration detainer to his hold.

Gutierrez-Jimenez pleaded guilty in October 2018 to two counts of third-degree rape, with forcible compulsion and the fact the victim was a client during a treatment session.

The charges reflect that the victim did not consent to sex, and “such lack of consent was clearly expressed by the victim’s words or conduct,” documents said.

He was moved to Tacoma’s Immigration Processing Center on Feb. 20, 2019, once his sentence was done for the rapes.

This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 3:19 PM.