For more than four decades, a woman has silently borne the burden of an assault that forever marked her childhood.
Today, at over 40 years old, he decided to share his story to debunk a version he considers false and to make it clear that justice, although delayed, can still be achieved.
The case came back to public attention in October 2025, when Rolando Marino Cordero Rodríguez, a 76-year-old Cuban, was arrested by agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in front of his home in Miami.
The arrest was made due to a conviction related to a sexual offense that occurred in the 1980s.
After the news broke, in November the man's wife and stepdaughter came to his defense, stating that he was a sick, hardworking, and reformed elderly man, and insisting that the case was related to an alleged relationship with a 17-year-old minor.
However, that version omitted a fundamental detail: the victim was only seven years old when the abuse started.
"Perhaps they know the story as he told it."
The victim, whose identity is kept confidential along with her mother's, contacted the journalist from Univision, Javier Díaz, to offer her exclusive testimony after witnessing how her aggressor was being publicly defended.
"Perhaps they know the story as he told it to them, which is not the correct story," she stated.
“He was not in a relationship with a minor of 17 years. He committed a crime against a 7-year-old girl,” he emphasized.
The woman explains that she still keeps the police report from Hialeah, from 1994, which includes the statement of the accused and his confession of the events.
According to her account, the abuses began when she was only seven years old and continued for nearly a decade.
The sexual abuse continued until she turned 16. It was then, as a teenager, that she attempted to take her own life, and that attempt brought to light what had been happening for years within the home.
A sentence that was never enough
Rolando Marino Cordero Rodríguez was not only arrested at the time but also confessed to the assault. The judicial process concluded with a sentence of 10 years in prison, a penalty that the victim considers insufficient.
“I was never satisfied”, she claims.
After serving his sentence, the offender resumed his life in the United States, appeared before immigration authorities for years, and managed to rebuild his family environment.
Decades later, his arrest by ICE brought his name back to the headlines.
“In December, I searched for him and saw that he was in the custody of ICE,” the victim stated.
The emotional impact was immediate. For her, knowing that she was finally facing immigration consequences was a long-awaited form of redress.
“Tremendous joy. Now you can suffer. Now you do suffer”, he expressed.
The mother: "The sky and the earth came together for me."
The testimony of the victim's mother is one of the most difficult in the case.
She was in a relationship with Rolando Cordero for years and lived with him while the abuses occurred, without knowing about them - as she claims.
"I couldn't believe it; that day the sky and the earth converged for me. It was a very painful day, very sad for me," he stated while recalling the moment he discovered the truth.
The woman explained that she was the one who, after hours of pressure and confrontation, managed to get the aggressor to confess what had happened. Now, at over 70 years old, she acknowledges that she tried to provide a father figure for her children, but admits that she made a serious mistake.
“I never saw anything, ever. Do you think that if I had seen something or imagined even a hint that something was happening, I would have allowed it? I think I would have killed him myself,” she confessed, insisting that she was completely unaware of the systematic abuse against her daughter.
For her, the deportation of her ex-partner represents closure, although it doesn't erase the harm done. “Now justice has truly been served, because he is a miserable dog,” she stated.
Cordero Rodríguez has already been deported to Mexico
The Cuban arrived in the United States in 1980, during the Mariel exodus. In the mid-1980s, he was accused and subsequently convicted of sexual assault. Since then, he has appeared in official records as a sex offender.
"He just arrived from Cuba. Sometimes one comes from Cuba and doesn't know the laws of this country, and so sometimes one makes those mistakes," he explained last November during a previous interview with Univision, trying to contextualize the situation within the legal ignorance that many newly arrived migrants face.
Cordero Rodríguez was released after serving his sentence, and since then, according to the testimony of his associates, he has not committed any further crimes.
For over 30 years, he presented himself regularly before immigration authorities without missing a single appointment.
In 1997, however, a deportation order was issued against him that, for unknown reasons, was never enforced until October 2025.
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