24-year-old Visalia man sentenced to 22 years in prison for rape

A 24-year-old Visalia man is headed to prison for the 2018 sexual assault of an ex-girlfriend, Tulare County prosecutors announced.

Last week, a judge sentenced Andres Solis to 22 years and 8 months in prison for rape and other sex crimes.

Solis was convicted in January of false imprisonment, two counts of rape, three counts of forced oral sex, assault with intent to commit a felony sex offense, dissuading a witness from reporting a crime, domestic violence, and misdemeanor assault.

The victim and Solis started talking in the spring of 2017. By the following spring, the two were officially dating. However, from the beginning, they had a rocky relationship, the woman told the Times-Delta in 2019. As a rule, the newspaper does not name victims of sexual assault.

On Nov. 18, 2018, Solis forced the woman into his house and committed a series of violent sexual assaults. During the investigation, Solis told the victim not to go to the police and offered to pay her and her family for complying.

He was arrested shortly after and convicted more than four years later.

In addition to his prison sentence, the judge ordered Solis to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.