Facebook Predator

By: Amanda Mason

       Anthony Beccera, 21, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday, after pleading guilty to four counts of sexual abuse and other sex crimes against three minors in Tempe, AZ.

       Beccera has been in jail since his arrest on May 13, 2015, after the parents of the 14-year-old victim called the police to report sexual abuse and threats.

       According to court documents, the 14-year-old, investigators name victim number three, met Beccera online and started a conversation over text from August 2013 to May 2015 and they periodically met. During this time Beccera coaxed the young girl into meeting him at a park. According to court documents, he locked her in his car and raped her on two separate occasions while allegedly holding a knife to her throat. During both assaults, he was a legal adult at 19-years-old.

       When the victim refused to meet Beccera at a park near her home after the incidents, court documents state, that in response Beccera texted her a picture of guns lying on a table and said “are you trying to make me come after you? These are all mine, don’t f--- with me, I can be your worst nightmare.”

       Outside the courtroom in the waiting area, Rivera described her son and said, “When he was arrested he was going to school for criminal law, he is a very intelligent person, anyone will tell you that, honor roll student really smart kid. Oh yeah, he has never been in trouble with the law…He obviously was a dog, cause he dated a lot of girls. He’s a very attractive kid.”

       This is not the first underage girl that Beccera has been involved with. In an earlier case, court documents report, that Beccera sexual assaulted, victim number two, a 15-year-old girl on October 1, 2014.  The second victim, according to court documents, said she was sexually assaulted in his car near a park, but was able to escape the situation before intercourse. The court records also said, that same victim received text messages from Beccera “threatening to rape her, and take her virginity by force if she didn’t give into him.”

       Rivera said her son, “..was on Facebook and kept asking the girls to ‘meet me at the park.’ The girls would say, ’Oh I can’t today, maybe tomorrow. I can meet you on Friday.’ So they said it was intimidation because he kept asking them out.”

       Rivera also said that her son was arrested a year after the third offense, “They have no limit, he could have been 80 years old and they could have still arrested him for that one girl he dated 30 years ago.” According to the court files, Beccera last attempted to meet with victim number three on the evening of May 3, 2015, just seven days before his arrest.

       For a year before Beccera’s arrest he was and still is married to Karen Beccera the mother of his now three-year-old daughter, Rivera said, “She was with him a year after he dated these girls.”

       Karen Beccera, Beccera’s wife, outside the courtroom, talked about her relationship with him.

       “He is very respectful and very understanding, loving, kind and sweet,” she said.

       Karen is talking about the same guy who according to the court documents, on July 14, 2014 had sexual intercourse with his 17-year-old friend and in front of her 23-month-old sister, investigators named victim number one.

       Rivera said is it not uncommon for an 18-year-old to date a 17-year-old or a 16-year-old in high school and “love is weird and dating is weird. If you are going to say that it is illegal to date someone under 18, when you are 18-years-old then you might as well arrest the whole high school because a lot of that is going on.” Except that under the law it’s a crime.

       During the previous proceedings before Beccera’s case was addressed, he smiled at his family and tried to mouth words to his wife that made her giggle.

       When it was Beccera’s time they gave him an opportunity to address Judge Mark Brian.

       “Thank you for giving me the plea, and thank for the legal system. Sorry to my family for what I’ve done to them, to the victims and their families, I take full responsibility. I’ve done a lot to change myself and did some soul searching,” said Beccera.

       Beccera spent his second opportunity to address Judge Brian and pleaded to be able to see his daughter. According to the guilty plea he signed, after he is released from jail he will not only be on life probation, but will be labeled as a sex offender and will be unable to see his daughter who will be a minor around nine-years-old. He didn’t understand yet that he has to wait to get out of jail before his parole officer could make that decision.

       Michael Lee, Beccera’s attorney said, since being in jail he’s taken every class available in the jail to further educate himself and he is determined.

       “We have a good family lots of support, one year later he got married and I don’t want him to be another statistic in law. Are you really an adult at 18? It takes time to learn how to be a man,” Rivera said in court before Judge Brian gave the sentencing.

       After Judge Brian read off each of the four counts, Beccera’s mother ran out of the courtroom crying and mumbling, “My baby is screwed.” Soon after her daughter-in-law and husband left the courtroom. Beccera, looked defeated and shuffled his shackled feet, with his head down out of the courtroom.

       Lee said, outside the courtroom regarding the sentencing, “Anthony Beccera has strong support from his family and he is a very intelligent boy and at the end of the day l think he’ll at least be successful. That’s all I can say.”

       “He will never be able to become the criminal lawyer he’s always wanted to be, he was in college at MCC for Criminal Law and graduated from high school with honor roll. He always wanted to be a lawyer and likes to defend people.” said Rivera. Beccera’s father, Pierre Debelmar said, “He has a big heart.”

       Since the witnesses were all minors, their identities were concealed and unavailable for questioning.

       Beccera will spend the next approximately seven years (last two and a half years counting towards the 10 year sentence) serving for the crimes he pleaded guilty to. Beccera pleaded guilty to sexual abuse, attempted molestation of a child, aggravated assault with sexual motivation and attempted sexual assault.

       According to the most recent statistics from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), every eight minutes a child is a victim of sexual assault. RAINN found that 334 of every 1000 rapes are reported, 63 predators are arrested, average 13 predators go to trial and six of those predators will go to jail. Six out of every 1,000 perpetrators end up in prison, Beccera is now one of them.