Damon Assanah, also known as ‘Devil,’ who has been sentenced to 18 years for raping a 13-year-old girl whom he also impregnated, is appealing his conviction and the sentence, which he contends is too severe.
In a notice of appeal lodged with the Guyana Court of Appeal, Assanah, through his attorney Tiffany Jeffrey-Durant, is advancing that the verdict was unreasonable and that the sentence imposed was “manifestly excessive” and “too severe in all circumstances of the case.”
Assanah, the Appellant, is hoping that the appellate court would reserve and/or set aside the finding of guilt by the jury and quash and set aside his conviction and sentence.
In addition to those listed grounds, the Appellant has indicated in his notice his intention to file additional grounds.
Assanah was sentenced last month after a jury convicted him of raping and impregnating the teen back in 2015.
At his sentencing hearing, trial Judge Brassington Reynolds had pointed out to an expressionless Assanah that though he sought to plead for the court’s mercy, it did not assist when considering that he refused to express any remorse for his actions.
Assanah was unanimously convicted by a jury on one of three counts of raping the teen.
The jury said that he was not guilty of the first count of raping the child sometime between January 1 and 31, 2015.
She was 12 years old at that time.
The jury found that he was also not guilty of raping the child later that year—between October 1 and 31. By that time she had turned 13.
The panel, however, found Assanah guilty of raping the teen sometime between November 1 and 30, 2015.
Regarding the allegation on the first count, Assanah was accused of calling the child via a cell phone.
The court had heard that after she went to him, he pulled her into a yard near a pen where he sexually penetrated her.
On the second allegation, the court had heard that as she made her way to run an errand, the child was on the road when she encountered Assanah who held her by the hand, placed her into his car, and drove to his house.
The child had related to the court that the accused took her by the hand into his house where he stripped her naked, removed his clothing and again raped her.
The court had then heard that on the third count on which Assanah was convicted, the child was walking along the road when the convict again held onto her hands and took her into his house, undressed her and raped her.
On December 7, 2015, the child was in school when she began vomiting, as a result of which she was taken to the hospital the following day by her mother.
After undergoing a blood and urine test, it was revealed the child was some seven weeks pregnant, and it was at that point that she related to her mother, what Assanah had done to her.
Assanah, 33, was 27 years old at the time of the alleged first assault.
