Hermes Franca sentenced to 42 months in prison

[keithlewis]

http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascoun ... _fran.html

A former Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight title contender has been sentenced to more than three years in prison after being convicted this week of sexually abusing an underage female student at his Clackamas martial arts school.

Hermes Franca Barros, 37, pleaded guilty in Clackamas County Court on Wednesday to one count of unlawful penetration and one count of first-degree sexual abuse. He was sentenced to 3½ years in prison.

He was arraigned in May on seven counts of first-degree sexual abuse and two counts of second-degree unlawful sexual penetration. The remaining counts were dismissed.

Barros will also have four and a half years of post-prison supervision and must register as a sex offender.

Barros, a resident of Jupiter, Fla., turned himself in to Clackamas County Sheriff's Deputies in May after a warrant was issued for his arrest, stemming from a December 2010 encounter with one of his students.

Barros operated the Team Hermes Franca Brazilian Jiu-Jutsu Academy. He has a 22-12 record as a professional mixed martial artist and fought for the UFC off and on between 2003 and 2009.

He unsuccessfully challenged for the promotion's lightweight title in 2007. After the bout he was suspended from competition for a year and fined $2,500 by the California State Athletic Commission for testing positive for a banned steroid in his post-fight drug test. He last fought in April, losing by knockout in the second round during a fight in Brazil.

Last June, Barros apparently left a message to his fans on an MMA online forum reflecting that he immigrated from Brazil to the U.S. in 2000 with $300 and speaking very little English but eventually "lost sight of what is truly important (in) life."

"Drinking, women, parties, all part of a lifestyle that has led to my failing as a husband, a father, a dreamer," he wrote. "I am now a man with very little freedom."

[broncofan]

I used to root for him but now I am rooting that he gets what is coming to him in prison.