HOUSTON — An apprentice plumber from Spring Branch has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl in her family's home, according to Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
Brandon Joseph Bonds, 26, pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated sexual assault of a child back in 2018.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to have a stranger violate the sanctity of a family’s home and abuse a small child, and I’m proud we were able to get justice for this little girl,” Ogg said.
She said the plea deal spares the child from having to testify at a trial.
Bonds and his boss were working on a garage apartment at the family's home and the victim was watching television in the living room.
Bonds was outside when the master plumber went upstairs with the parents to check on a bathroom. Prosecutors say Bonds tricked the little girl into unlocking the door and letting him inside.
That's when he molested the 4-year-old who told her parents what happened after the plumbers left.
The girl was taken to Texas Children’s Hospital where Bonds' DNA was found.
"Of all the child abuse cases I’ve seen, this is one of the worst because that 4-year-old was watching cartoons in her living room, with her parents at home, and it should have been the safest place in the universe for her,” Assistant DA Preston Burns said. “But he was able to get to her and do something terribly, horribly awful to her.”
The DA's Digital Forensic Investigations Unit also determined that Bonds recorded the crime on his phone. The video had been deleted but they were able to recover evidence that proved it existed, Burns said.