Sex offender to spend eight years in state prison

John Ovalle, 54, pleaded no contest in Collier County Circuit Court to 13 counts of lewd sexual battery. After his prison term, he will spend another 10 years on sex offender probation.

Ovalle, who was formally convicted of all 13 felonies, will serve his term concurrently with a 10-year sentence he's already serving for a case in Weld County, Colo.

One case is related to his relationship with the girl, Toni Henry; the other one isn't.

Receiving credit for nearly three years in jail awaiting trial in the Collier case, Ovalle will be eligible for mandatory parole in Colorado in 2006.

"The way it's set up, he has to go back out there to finish his sentence, then come here to finish this sentence," said Assistant State Attorney Steve Maresca, who prosecuted the Florida case.

The victim and her family signed off on the terms of the plea, although they believed Ovalle deserved more prison time, Maresca said.

Ovalle could have faced at least 14 years in prison and up to 195 years as a maximum.

"Due to various witness circumstances, they decided to move on with their lives," Maresca said. "He's getting a prison sentence and sex offender probation to follow, and he will be screened for Jimmy Ryce (Florida's civil commitment law for sex offenders). He's being punished."

Henry and her mother live out of state, and numerous witnesses are in Colorado and would have to be transported to Naples for trial at what would be a hefty cost for the county, Maresca said.

Part of the challenge to get witnesses to Naples involved Henry, who is in an Adams County, Colo., jail on drug- and gun-possession charges.

The case involving Ovalle and Henry, now 20, made national news, including a television talk show appearance by Henry and her mother. Her family and Weld County deputies conducted an exhaustive search for her that ended in East Naples in 1999. A runaway, Henry had last been seen by her family in 1996 when she was 13.

Ovalle, then a resident of Colorado, had met Henry while she was a friend of his teenage daughter, according to prosecutors in Colorado. Henry and Ovalle began a sexual relationship and disappeared together.

A year later, in March 1999, Henry called her parents. She told them she was living in Los Angeles. The strained tone of the conversation and the untrue information led investigators to believe Ovalle was in the room controlling what she said.

Investigators traced the phone call to an apartment on Francis Avenue in East Naples. A computer-generated photograph of Henry helped deputies, who responded to the call and arrested Ovalle.

A DNA expert in Colorado would have come to Naples to testify that Ovalle fathered Henry's child, to whom she gave birth in August 1999 when she was 15.

Ovalle was arrested on a violation of probation charge because he left Colorado with an unrelated escape charge pending against him from 1992. Ovalle pleaded no contest to that charge and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, Henry, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Ovalle took the plea so he can get his prison term over with and start his life anew, his attorney, Gregory Mangone, said after the plea. He also has some medical concerns and believes he will get better health care in Colorado than in Naples.

Under a court order, he can have no contact with Henry or their child. Ovalle hopes that will change and he can begin providing financial support after he leaves custody, Mangone said.

"In the scheme of things, he doesn't have that much time left to do," Mangone said.

Ovalle has a prior criminal record from the late 1980s involving a 14-year-old girl. He has prior convictions for forgery, attempted robbery and harboring a runaway, according to Colorado prosecutors.