AUBURN – A 44-year-old man convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl behind a downtown store in Lewiston last summer was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in prison.

Raul Castro Zepeda, a Mexican national whose court proceedings were interpreted in Spanish for him, may be deported after he serves his time, his lawyer said.

Androscoggin County Superior Court Justice Thomas Delahanty II imposed a 10-year sentence, with all but seven years suspended on a count of gross sexual assault. The maximum penalty for a Class A felony is 30 years. Zepeda will serve six years of probation following his prison term, when he will have to get sex offender treatment and register with authorities as a sex offender, among other conditions.

Delahanty also sentenced Zepeda to three years on a count of unlawful sexual contact, a class C felony; the two sentences are to run concurrently.

The boldness of his downtown attack stunned the Lewiston community.

Zepeda apparently stalked his victim from the swimming pool at Kennedy Park to woods behind a downtown store. Witnesses said they saw Zepeda kneeling between her legs, her bathing suit bottoms down.

When confronted, he claimed she was his girlfriend.

The victim, now 14, read a statement in court.

“Some people say I should have hit, kicked, bit, screamed or ran to my house,” she said in a hushed tone. “When something like that happens to you, you just freeze.”

She said she “always felt strong and could take care of myself. Now I feel scared a lot.” She has nightmares about Zepeda breaking out of jail and coming to get her, she said.

The victim said Zepeda should go to jail for “as long as you could put him in” and that he “should never be trusted around kids.”

Putting him in jail would keep him from abusing somebody else, she said. “No one should be scared in their own neighborhood and no one should have to be scared of their neighbors.”

Zepeda stood in his tan jail clothes, his ankles shackled, and gave his own statement.

“I ask forgiveness for all problems I have caused,” he said through an interpreter.

Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cashman, who prosecuted the case, said on the courthouse steps afterward that she and the victim’s family were “very happy” with the sentence. She had asked for 15 years, with all but 10 years suspended.

The victim had hoped she would be 18 years old by the time Zepeda left prison.

Cashman said the witnesses who intervened by confronting Zepeda should be commended for their actions. Had they not stepped in, things might have taken an even worse turn that day, she said. Moreover, prosecutors may not have been successful in getting a conviction without those witnesses’ statements, she said.

“People often don’t get involved when they should,” she said.

Verne Paradie, Zepeda’s attorney, said his client felt he was “enticed or invited” by the victim, whom he thought was older than she was.

That may explain Zepeda’s lack of remorse or acknowledgment of the crime cited by Delahanty, coupled with Zepeda’s language barrier, Paradie said.

He said he plans to appeal the sentence. He said Delahanty should never have considered a warrant out of Arkansas in connection to an alleged sexual assault involving a 9-year-old girl. Paradie had recommended his client serve three years in prison.

Although he believes Zepeda is a legal alien, Paradie said his client’s exact immigration status is unknown. He said Zepeda might be deported after he’s released from prison.