25 Years-To-Life Rape Sentence Not Over For Local Man

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — A Valley Ford man sentenced to 25 years to life for raping a woman at knifepoint during a burglary has been denied parole.

Felimon Franco Torres, 61, will remain at the Valley State Prison following a Nov. 6 parole hearing.

A jury convicted Torres in 1996 of forcible rape, residential burglary, attempted residential robbery, making criminal threats, and false imprisonment. The jury also found that Torres used a knife during the attack.

Prosecutors said he broke into a woman’s home, entered her bedroom armed with a knife, and demanded money. Torres then tied the woman’s hands and raped her in front of her small child who had also been sleeping in that room.

Torres was sentenced to serve a sentence of 25 years to life in prison, which began in 2000.

His request for parole was denied by California Board of Parole Hearings commissioners.

In reaching their decision to deny parole, the commissioners found Torres’s continued denial of the rape implausible given eye-witness testimony and DNA evidence, according to a statement by the Sonoma Couty District Attorney's Office. He also had a felony DUI and felony hit-and-run causing injury, according to the D.A.'s office.

His next parole hearing is tentatively scheduled for November 2030.

Torres waived a parole hearing two years in a row before the Nov. 6 date, state records show.