Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that, in the April 30, 2015 conviction, Shane Heiman was found guilty of assault in the third degree.
Shane Heiman, a Soldotna man convicted of sexual assault, burglary and kidnapping, has been sentenced to 58 years and 30 days of active jail time and 15 years of probation.
Heiman, 41, was sentenced Thursday during a packed and emotional hearing at the Kenai courthouse by Kenai Superior Court Judge Charles Huguelet for two separate cases for incidents that took place 32 days apart in November and December 2013.
He was convicted on April 17, 2015 of attempted sexual assault in the first degree, first-degree burglary, assault in the third degree and resisting arrest for breaking into a woman’s home and threatening her with a knife in the December 2013 incident.
On April 30, 2015, he was convicted in the earlier case of first and second-degree sexual assault, kidnapping and assault in the third degree. This conviction stemmed from the incident in which Heiman broke into a different woman’s home in November 2013, bound her and raped her in his truck. He was connected to that case by DNA evidence after being arrested for the December attack.
“What we are dealing with is a man who plans his crimes,” said Assistant District Attorney Kelly Lawson in arguing for a longer sentence than what defense attorney Josh Cooley had proposed.
Details of both cases, including the fact that Heiman cut the power to the house he broke into in December 2013 before he attacked the woman inside, were brought up throughout the hearing.
“This defendant illustrates stranger danger at its worst,” Lawson said.
In sentencing the November 2013 case, Cooley requested that the charge of sexual assault in the second degree be merged with the charge of first-degree sexual assault, saying one was preliminary to the other, which Huguelet agreed to. This means Heiman only received a sentence for the greater charge, that of first-degree sexual assault.
In all, Huguelet ordered Heiman to serve 83 years and 30 days in jail, with 25 of those years suspended. He will face 15 years of probation, as well as restitution in an amount yet to be determined.
The sentence includes forfeiting all items seized during investigation, including the truck in which he raped his first victim. However, the vehicle belongs to Heiman’s wife, and a separate hearing will be set to deal with what will happen to it.
Cooley said Heiman has already registered as a sex offender.
The two victims and their family members made statements at the sentencing hearing. The father of the woman raped in November 2013 appeared at the hearing over the phone, saying he was proud of his daughter for continuing with the trial even when others wished she would be done with it in order to end her pain.
“These girls would not run away in shame,” he said, adding in a direct address to Heiman: “You didn’t break her, you sick monster.”
Speaking with difficulty, the women addressed Heiman themselves. The woman attacked in December told Heiman she forgave him, but added that she didn’t “think there should be any chance of daylight” for him.
“The only thing this man did not take from me was my life,” said the woman he raped in his truck.
Heiman’s wife also made a statement at the hearing, saying that there are no words when it comes to addressing the victims, and that she would not know what to do in that situation herself. She added that Heiman had always been a good father to their three children, and that her family will continue to visit him.
Huguelet gave Heiman the opportunity to make a statement of his own, but Cooley said that because Heiman plans to appeal, he would not be making one.
Reach Megan Pacer at megan.pacer@peninsulaclarion.com.
