A man who pleaded guilty to breaking into a couple’s house near Northeast Tacoma where he raped a woman in her 70s and robbed the couple of gold and diamond rings was sentenced Friday to 29 years to life in prison.
Jose Javier Barragan, 23, pleaded guilty in February to two counts of first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree burglary for the July 2023 attack . He also admitted to attempting to elude a pursuing police vehicle for fleeing from sheriff’s deputies after they tracked the victims’ stolen phones to a residence near Parkland.
In a victim-impact statement filed with the court, the victims said they were awakened sometime after 5 a.m. by a person who jumped on their bed, pinned both of them down and held a gun to the man’s head. The man’s hands were tied with a belt, and after inquiring about a safe — which the couple didn’t have — the attacker forced the woman at gunpoint into an adjoining room, where she was raped twice…