Peabody man already serving time gets more added to prison sentence

SALEM – A former Peabody man already serving 20 years in Federal Court for trying to have his wife and infant daughter killed to prevent the woman from testifying against him in a home invasion and assault case received another seven years in prison during a plea concession Friday in Salem Superior Court.Vasco Federico Guillermo, 32, an attorney in his native Ecuador, pleaded guilty to home invasion, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon and assault and battery in connection with an incident with his estranged wife at his former home at 14 Ruth Ave., in Peabody on May 5, 2004.He was sentenced to serve seven to nine years in state prison on the assault and battery with a dangerous weapon crime, but that will not commence until he completes the 20-year federal prison punishment.He was also given three to five years in state prison for the assault with a dangerous weapon charge, which runs together with the 7-to-9-year punishment.He was also placed on 20 years of administrative probation when he gets out of prison on the home invasion offense, with the conditions he not re-enter the United States and he is ordered to stay away from the victim and his daughter.After Vasco gets out of jail, he will be immediately deported to Ecuador and is not to return to this country.If he does not abide by those conditions, Vasco is looking at a mandatory minimum of 20 years more in prison.Judge David A. Lowy sentenced him in compliance with an agreement reached by Assistant District Attorney Carol Ann Hillis and defense lawyer Mark Schmidt.In accepting the plea recommendation, Lowy noted that Vasco had taken responsibility.Hillis said the charges concern an incident that began on the morning of May 5 at about 9:30 a.m., when Vasco, who had been living in East Boston, showed up at 14 Ruth Ave., where his wife and then 3-month-old daughter lived with her parents.Vasco?s wife had filed for divorce. He tried to reconcile their differences, but when she refused, he threatened her with a knife, pulled the phone from the wall, punched her in the head and restrained her with duct tape from yelling as he cut her hand.During the incident, he kept pleading with her to go back with him to Ecuador, where they had met and married, or Canada to start over.To earn his trust, she tricked him into going to Lynn City Hall to obtain their child?s birth certificate to get a passport for the baby so they could travel. Once inside the complex, she took the child, ran behind the counter and screamed for help, saying her husband had a knife and was trying to take her baby.That triggered a brief car chase as Vasco fled from City Hall down the Lynnway where he eventually exited the vehicle and fled inside Building #19 where he was arrested.Police retrieved the duct tape and knife from the vehicle, Hillis said.Although Vasco had apparently forced his wife to have sex with him during the incident at their home, the commonwealth declined to prosecute that charge as well as a kidnapping and a court order charge as part of the plea agreement.In asking the judge to accept the proposal, Hillis explained that there had been “extensive negotiations” between herself and the defense as well as the victim and her family.The victim, she said, would like to put this thing “behind her.”Hillis presented a statement from the victim, which the judge read, but is not part of the court papers.?The facts given are horrible circumstances,” Lowy said, but acknowledged the punishment was an appropriate sentence.The victim and her family were present, but declined to comment only to say that she was “just happy it was over.”Schmidt emphasized his client?s educational background from Ecuador saying he has a law degree, adding he has had no prior criminal record.He and his estranged wife met in the late 1990s in Ecuador, married in 1999 and came to the U.S. in 2000 where he worked for the postal service and did catering and cooking.He learned English from att