Michael Dwaine Polvado (Wichita County Law Enforcement Center)
A 44-year-old man in Texas accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting his 17-year-old stepdaughter by convincing her that a fictitious gang would kill her mother if she did not comply and forcing her to live in a shed behind their home for more than a year will spend no time in prison after reaching a deal with prosecutors.
Seventy-eighth District Judge Meredith Kennedy sentenced Michael Dwaine Polvado on Friday to 10 years of probation after he pleaded guilty to one count of prohibited sexual conduct, a third-degree felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison, court records show.
The sentence of probation was handed down in lieu of a 10-year suspended prison sentence. Polvado will also be required to register as a sex offender because the victim was 17 at the time of the offense and to have no contact with the victim in the future.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, officers from the Wichita Falls Police Department responded to a call from the victim on Aug. 8, 2021, reporting that Polvado “sexually assaulted her” and said that “threats were made against her life if she told anyone.”
The victim told investigators that in March 2019, she gave birth to a baby that died a few days later due to medical complications. The following month, the victim said Polvado began sexually assaulting her, “telling her that gang members were making him do this.”
He further claimed that the gang members “wanted him to have sex with her or they would kill her mother,” according to the affidavit.
“She stated this happened every morning Monday through Friday and some weekends from April 2019 until she moved out of town in April 2020,” the document states.
The victim moved out of the house for about a month in June 2019 before her parents made her come home and forced her to live “in the shed behind the house.”
Police said the victim’s mother also knew about the sexual assaults and provided text messages in which she told her mother that Polvado had “lied about the gang and that it was wrong of [Polvado] to force her to have sex with him.”
“[The victim’s mom] responded claiming the gang had a gun to her head and Michael did not want to hurt anyone but only wanted to save them (the victim and her mother),” police wrote.
In an interview with police, the victim’s mom said that she knew about the gang members and that her husband “had sex with the victim at least once that she knew of in order to appease the gang members.”
However, she claimed she never filed a police report “to protect her family.”
When Polvado spoke to police and asked why he was having sex with his stepdaughter, he claimed it was because “she kept asking him and he finally said yes.”
When asked about the alleged gang threats, Polvado “stated he saw no evidence of threats and the only people he saw were ‘strange vehicles’ driving past the house,” the affidavit states.
The Wichita County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a message from Law&Crime regarding Polvado’s sentence.
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