47°
Julio Godinez, 42, was one of several workers who renovated the woman’s home after she bought in in 2009, authorities said.
He got her cell number after she gave him some furniture from her deceased uncle’s house and then began calling her from pre-paid, untraceable phones, the victim said.
Godinez would “call at 8 in the morning before work, at lunch time," she told Daily Voice after Friday's sentencing. "Then at night it would get really bad.”
The worst was when he was drunk "and then it would just be incessant,” the victim said. “I put the phone face-down and wouldn’t even pick it up. I wouldn’t even look at it.”
She feared for her safety, she said, and the stress was tremendous.
The woman said she finally changed her phone number, after which Godinez was caught buying a new, pre-paid phone using the name “Julio Alvarez.”
After serving a plea-bargained 364 days in the Bergen County Jail, Godinez will immediately go to federal immigration court, Superior Court Judge James J. Guida on Friday in Hackensack.
It won’t be the first time: Godinez was deported after pleading guilty to indecent exposure in 2001, only to return.
“He tormented this woman for five years," Assistant Bergen County Prosecutor Daryl Williams told Guida on Friday. "He needs to take his punishment and be deported because he doesn’t belong in this country.”
Although an interpreter was required for the sentencing, Godinez apparently speaks English well enough that he could he could call the woman and make kissing sounds, identify himself as “Mario, and say “Baby, I miss you,” the judge noted.
He also texted her and sent her obscene photographs, including pictures of male genitals, he said.
Guida reminded Godinez that he's under a permanent restraining order prohibiting him from contacting the victim -- and told him he'd be arrested if he ever tried to again.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Fort Lee and receive free news updates.
