Brother of Accused Rapist Charged With Offering Hush Money to Victim

Gwinnett County authorities say the lawyer-brother of an accused rapist has been arrested for offering the victim money to say the alleged attack was consensual sex.

The Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office said Hernan Torrijos-Carapia was arrested Tuesday evening following a month-long investigation with Gwinnett PD. Torrijos-Carapia, an attorney in Mexico City, Mexico, has been charged with influencing witnesses.

He is being held without bond in the Gwinnett County jail.

His brother, Daniel Torrijos, is already an inmate at the jail, charged with rape, burglary and false imprisonment for an alleged incident in 2007, during which police charge he raped the victim in front of her small child, the DA’s office said in a news release. The victim also was pregnant at the time of the attack. Daniel Torrijos was not identified as the suspect until August 2014.

Investigators believe Hernan Torrijos-Carapia made several phone calls to the victim and offered to pay her money to lie in an affidavit and at trial, ”by stating the rape was actually an act of consensual sex and that the charges against Daniel Torrijos should be dismissed,” the DA’s office said.

According to the indictment, Torrijos-Carapia, Daniel Torrijos and a third man, Ezequiel Samuel Torrijos, conspired from June 17 until Sept. 15 to offer the victim and a relative money to lie.

The DA’s office said the alleged attack was particularly brutal. Daniel Torrijos is accused of forcing his way into the victim’s apartment on Sweetwater Road in unincorporated Duluth, preventing her escape, then raping her in her bedroom.

DNA evidence eventually linked him to the crime.

Photo: Hernan Torrijos-Carapia; Gwinnett County Jail mug shot