BOSTON, March 27, 2014—A woman raped by a former New Jersey resident declared that she was a survivor, not a victim, moments before he was sentenced to more than a decade behind bars, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said today.

At the request of Assistant District Attorney Holly Broadbent, the DA’s chief sexual assault prosecutor, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Frances McIntyre sentenced WILLIAM E. SALINAS (D.O.B. 3/16/90)  to a term of 12 to 16 years in state prison, followed by 10 years of probation. As conditions of that probation, Salinas must register and undergo treatment as a sex offender, wear a GPS monitoring device, and have no contact with the victim.

Jurors convicted Salinas Tuesday of aggravated rape and related offenses for the Oct. 25, 2011, attack on a 20-year-old woman in her Brighton home. At a sentencing hearing today, the woman submitted a written impact statement detailing the lasting effects of the attack – including the physical side effects of post-exposure drugs to prevent possible HIV contraction and the lasting emotional trauma.

“I was changed by William Salinas, but what happened to me affected the people I care most about, and that hurt just as bad,” she wrote. “My family … always knew there were bad people out there, but they never thought that someone would just walk right in and hurt me.”

She also sounded a defiant note, however, recalling a conversation just a few days ago with a Boston Police Sexual Assault Unit detective assigned to the case.

“He told me I was a survivor, and he was right,” she wrote. “I am no longer a victim – I am a survivor.”

Evidence and testimony proved that Salinas entered the woman’s Brighton apartment through an unlocked balcony door, bound her hands, and assaulted her before fleeing. A few days later, Boston Police criminalists were able to match DNA from that crime scene to DNA from another open case involving an assault on a woman on Brookline Avenue about a month earlier.

Both of those cases went unsolved until late 2012, when Somerville Police interviewed Salinas in connection with unsolved sexual assaults in their jurisdiction. Salinas made incriminating post-Miranda statements regarding the 2011 assaults in Boston, but stated that the sexual contact was consensual.

“It was information sharing across jurisdictions that helped us solve this case,” Conley said, “but we could never have prosecuted it without this young woman’s courage. She made this city safer by taking the stand and testifying.”

Suffolk prosecutors had sought to try Salinas’ on both Boston offenses in one proceeding. A judge severed the two cases over prosecutors’ objections. His trial on the Brookline Avenue assault has not yet been scheduled.

Christine Berardino was the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocate. Salinas was represented by attorney Lefteris Travayiakis.

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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.