WEST PALM BEACH — Two college students who were sexually assaulted within one week of each other linked arms outside of a Palm Beach County courtroom Friday and cried.
They were tears of relief. Cristian Leon, 26, who threatened to come out of prison “hunting” and put the women who took the stand against him in the jury trial “six feet under,” was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday, the maximum possible sentence for the crime.
Less than 20% of sexual assault victims will ever see their attacker arrested. Fewer, still — less than 1% — will see that person convicted in a jury trial. They will almost never address him in court, as the two victims did Friday, see him receive as harsh a sentence, or meet another victim who shared a nearly identical experience — now a “best friend,” as one of the victims, E.F., referred to the other, M.B., in her impact statement.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel is referring to the two women only by their initials to protect their identities.
“I feel sick to say I was relieved I didn’t have to go through this alone, and with her story being eerily similar I knew I had found someone who had gone through exactly what I had at the hands of the same man,” M.B. said in her own statement Friday. “… A man who made sure it would be our word against his. The same man who didn’t bet on us calling the police, who perpetrated a crime that is often never reported and didn’t expect us to catch him.”
Leon was sentenced under a Florida law that allows habitual offenders to receive greater penalties. In April 2018, he was convicted of falsely impersonating a law enforcement officer and false imprisonment after he pulled an exotic dancer over while he was dressed in a uniform, then asked her to show him her breasts, according to the probable cause affidavit from that case.
“I find that Mr. Leon’s conduct prior to and after the jury found him guilty of sexual battery in this case warrants severe sanction,” Judge Jeffrey Gillen said as he announced the sentence Friday, adding that “a judge may indeed, in my judgment must, protect society by deterring future harmful conduct.”
The assaults
Friday’s sentencing marked the end of M.B.’s trial, in which E.F. testified as a witness. The state will announce its intensions in E.F.’s case at a hearing Wednesday.
A jury found Leon guilty of one count of sexual battery in May in M.B.’s case.
The 19-year-old Palm Beach Atlantic University student was walking home from Clematis Street a little after midnight on a Saturday in November 2021, according to the probable cause affidavit, when Leon asked her for directions to Rosemary Square, saying his phone was dead. She agreed to walk with him until he needed to turn.
“My kindness was taken advantage of,” M.B. said in her victim impact statement Friday.
He began telling her how beautiful she was, according to the affidavit. As they were walking, two classmates approached her. She hugged them, whispering that she didn’t know Leon. While they talked, Leon continued down the street.
When she left her friends to continue home, Leon was standing on the sidewalk, waiting. He offered her $500 to walk with him, which she refused, according to the affidavit. Then, he pulled her into an alley and proceeded to rip off her top and molest her. She told him to stop, but he didn’t listen. Instead, he yanked her hair, forcing her to perform oral sex on him. When she tried to refuse, he told her, “stop causing a scene, you don’t want people to see you like this.”
Afterwards, he pulled away abruptly, said “thanks,” and fled, the affidavit said.
M.B. identified Leon in a line-up. He was arrested and charged with one count of sexual battery.
One week earlier, E.F., 20, was in a parking garage near Clematis Street in West Palm Beach when Leon approached her, according to the affidavit. He had told her that his phone was dead and he was lost, asking her to take him to Rosemary Square.
He also offered her money, which she declined, but reluctantly agreed to drive him. When they arrived, he directed her to the front of an abandoned house, where he grabbed her hair, pulled down her shirt, and forced her to perform oral sex on him, according to the affidavit. Then he left, taking her purse and car keys.
Due to the similarities between the two cases, detectives identified Leon as the suspect in E.F.’s assault as well. He was charged with another count of sexual battery.
Leon left DNA behind in both cases, according to Marc Freeman, a spokesperson for the State Attorney’s Office. “It established the defendant as being the assailant,” Freeman told the Sun Sentinel.
Threats recorded on jail calls
In phone calls to his family before and after the May trial, Leon vowed again and again to enact his revenge upon the two women.
Prosecutors played recordings of three of the calls in the courtroom Friday, arguing that they demonstrate Leon’s threat to the community should he be released from prison.
Leon’s defense attorney, Jack Fleischman, objected to the introduction of the phone calls, saying they were more “prejudicial” than “probative.”
“That is the most probative thing Your Honor should consider as to what type of future danger the defendant poses,” Assistant State Attorney Mathri Thannikkotu replied.
Gillen overruled the objection, and the phone calls were played.
“I’m just basically gonna come out of there hunting,” Leon told his sister in the first call, dated May 3, before the trial began. “I’m going to be so mad that I’m in here for a lie. There’s nothing I can do … who wouldn’t go crazy? Who wouldn’t come out a lunatic?”
In the courtroom, M.B. cried, sitting between E.F. and her mom, who rubbed her shoulder. Some of Leon’s family members appeared upset, breaking down in tears, though Leon showed little emotion.
In the call, his sister had told him how someone they knew named “Jack” described the sexual assaults as “sleeping around.”
“He’s single, what’s wrong with sleeping around?” she said. “Who said it’s illegal to sleep around? Since when is it illegal to have fun?”
In the next two phone calls, dated June 19 and June 20, after Leon’s conviction, he maintained his innocence, arguing that he had only stolen a purse from E.F. and not paid M.B. for a sex act.
“They’re giving me 15 years for what, for a purse?” he told his sister, referencing the minimum sentence. “They’re giving me 15 years for what, I didn’t pay you? How do you want that person to come out if that person does that time? If that person comes out, you’re going to have to constantly watch over your shoulders.”
The next day, he spoke to his sister again.
“What am I going to do after 15 years?” he asked. “Am I going to commit murder or what am I going to do?”
‘No one is afraid of you’
Leon’s threats did not deter the two victims from addressing him Friday, or from doing so frankly.
“The only thing I can say is good luck and also thanks for the heads up,” E.F. said to Leon in her statement. “No one is afraid of you.”
Before her assault, M.B. said, she had dreams of becoming a math professor. After, she was diagnosed with PTSD and developed an eating disorder. She failed all of her classes and had to drop out of college.
“I take solace in the fact that the worst thing you can do is stare me down,” M.B. said to Leon. “You do not have power over me.”
Leon’s mother referred to him as a “family guy” in a letter on his behalf, asking the judge to show mercy on him, while his brother-in-law, a firefighter, said Leon had “always been respectful” to his family.
Fleischman argued for the minimum sentence of 15 years, saying that Leon did not have a “significant criminal history” besides the 2018 incident.
“The worst part is the phone calls,” Fleischman said, but added, “when people are convicted, they are often angry, they speak in a vengeful manner.”
Judge Gillen was not convinced.
“I regularly give defendants opportunities to demonstrate the bona fides of professed desire to correct behavior which is unacceptable in civilized society,” he said as he announced the sentence. “… (Leon’s) having sexually assaulted M.B. and his equally disquieting and telling conversations with his sister during the recorded jail calls demonstrate the utter uselessness of that benevolence.”
Fleischman declined to comment on the sentence Friday afternoon, besides telling the Sun Sentinel that he intends to appeal the decision. The State Attorney’s Office said in a statement that “we are pleased the victims received justice and the defendant received the maximum possible sentence under the law.”
Though they would have hoped for a greater sentence if it had been possible, M.B. and E.F. maintained that they are not afraid of Leon.
“He’s not scary,” E.F. told reporters outside of the courtroom as the two victims stood with their families.
M.B.’s mom said it had been a “teaching moment.”
“We try to teach our kids to be kind to strangers,” she said. “We are a kind family … don’t stop being kind to people. Don’t let this define you.”
Still, both E.F. and M.B. said the experience had hardened them to the world in a way that they needed.
“I’m in a way thankful that this has happened to me,” E.F. said. “because I was very naïve, and I would travel alone by myself with no weapons on me to protect myself, and now I know to watch over my shoulder, because you really never know who’s following you.”
