FRIDAY UPDATE FROM DENVERPOST.COM
This morning in Arapahoe County court, Brent Brents pleaded guilty to raping and robbing a woman and molesting a young boy. The judge sentenced him to another 190 years in prison, on top of the 1,319 to which he was already sentenced for crimes in Denver.
He left her with bruises on her throat, an unforgettable nightmare, an unspeakable violation.
Yet as Brent J. Brents faces an Arapahoe County judge today for raping and robbing an Aurora woman, she wants him to know one thing:
I forgive you.
Still angry at times, struggling with hate and fear at others, the 49-year-old mother of three said she began the process of forgiveness after seeing a childhood photo of Brents in the paper a few weeks after the Feb. 4 rape in her home.
“He looked so innocent – all children are innocent,” said the woman, whom The Post is not identifying, “and I kept thinking, ‘Something happened to that little boy that he turned out to be the way he is.”‘
Prosecutors charged Brents with sexual assault, burglary and robbery in the woman’s case. He is expected to plead guilty and be sentenced on those charges today in Arapahoe County as well as for a second case involving the molestation of an 8-year-old boy.
“I’m glad he’s admitting what he’s done,” the woman said, “although he leaves us (his victims) in prison. I feel like a damn rat in my house. I don’t go anywhere, I’m so scared.”
In the case of the boy, Brents faces charges of sexual assault on a child, sexual assault on a child in a pattern of abuse and sexual assault on a child from someone in a position of trust.
“I’m glad to see justice is being taken care of and being taken care of sooner than later,” said Zach Dunn, the father of the boy Brents molested last year. The boy, whose mother briefly dated Brents, is now 9.
“We thought it would be dragged out into next year,” Dunn said of the case. “I’m also glad my son won’t have to go on the stand.”
In a recent letter to a Denver Post reporter, Brents apologized to his victims and said he was agreeing to plead guilty to spare them a painful trial.
That held little comfort for Dunn. “There’s nothing he can say to make anything better,” he said.
On Wednesday, Brents, 36, pleaded guilty to 66 charges, including attempted murder, sexual assault, kidnapping, child abuse, sexual assault of a child, menacing, burglary and robbery.
He received a sentence of more than 1,300 years in prison, one of the most extensive in Denver history. He will likely never be paroled.
As part of the plea deal, Brents will serve his time in a facility outside Colorado. His name is well-known here for a string of horrific crimes that panicked Denver residents and sparked a police manhunt that ended with his capture in Glenwood Springs on Feb. 18.
In court, his attorney, Carrie Thompson, said Brents had suffered “horrific” sexual abuse as a child and became a man who could no longer control his anger.
On Thursday, Brents’ mother, who asked not to be identified, said he was never abused as a child.
The woman who will face Brents as her attacker today believes otherwise.
“My husband, my sister, say, ‘How can you feel bad for him?’ I should be hating him. And I do sometimes, when I’m really scared. … But this is not about a man. This is about a little boy that somebody hurt.”
Staff writer Mike McPhee contributed to this report.
Staff writer Amy Herdy can be reached at 303-820-1752 or aherdy@denverpost.com.
