Staff photo / Ed Runyan Dagoberto Gomez-Espinoza, 64, left, of Falls Avenue in Youngstown, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to five counts of rape involving two juvenile victims. At right is his attorney, David Betras.

YOUNGSTOWN — Dagoberto Gomez-Espinoza, 64, of Falls Avenue, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to five counts of rape involving two children.

The rapes occurred between 1998 and 2012.

Gomez-Espinoza will be sentenced at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 16. He was indicted on 24 sex charges — 11 counts of rape, 10 counts of sexual battery and three counts of gross sexual imposition involving two children.

But Assistant Prosecutor Caitlyn Andrews said Tuesday that county prosecutors were willing to amend one of the rape charges he faced. It was a charge that carried a possible life sentence. It was amended to a first-degree rape charge that carries a penalty of about 11 years. It is one of the rapes to which he pleaded guilty. The child was under age 13.

During Gomez-Espinoza’s plea hearing, he kept his head down and only briefly raised his head to look Judge Anthony D’Apolito when the judge asked him questions.

All of the sexual-battery and gross-sexual-imposition charges were dismissed in exchange for Gomez-Espinoz’s guilty pleas to the rapes.

Prosecutors and the defendant agreed to recommend that Gomez-Espinoza get 20 years in prison. The judge said he could give Gomez-Espinoza as much as 55 years in prison, but he said he saw no reason not to sentence Gomez-Espinoza to the agreed-upon sentence of 20 years.

Gomez-Espinoza also is now a tier-3 sex offender, meaning he will have to register his address every 90 days for the rest of his life with the sheriff’s office where he lives.

If convicted on the rape charges alone, he could have gotten more than 100 years in prison.

The five rapes he pleaded guilty to occurred from December 1998 to December 2000, January 2003 through January 2004 and to January 2012, according to court documents. The guilty pleas include rapes of both juveniles.

Gomez-Espinoza has been in the county jail since September 2021, when he was indicted. He has been jailed in lieu of $300,000 bond.

erunyan@vindy.com