The girl said the man had sexually assaulted her when she was 12 years old.

At the time, she and others who skateboarded at a Beaverton park had known him only by his memorable nickname: Seven Stars.

A lawyer for the man, arrested more than three years later, argued his client wasn’t the suspect, a claim he would maintain as the case moved forward.

That defense fell to pieces the first day of trial last month when Washington County prosecutor Rayney Meisel discovered that the defendant, then known as Lorenzo Eric Gonzalez, 32, had legally changed his name.

Gonzalez would now be known as Seven Stars. He had filed the name-change petition while behind bars, awaiting his day in court, the prosecutor found.

Stars was convicted Nov. 19 on one count of second-degree sodomy, a Measure 11 crime given the age of the girl.

Circuit Judge Ricardo Menchaca sentenced him Wednesday to six years and three months in prison.

Stars had met the girl at Rosa Park and would occasionally hang out with her and buy her cigarettes because she was underage, according to prosecutors.

He was 27 then, more than twice her age, when he had her perform oral sex on him in a secluded part of the park in March 2015, court records show.

The girl never told anyone about what happened and soon after moved to southern Oregon.

An investigation into the assault began two-and-a-half years later, in December 2017, after Stars began messaging the girl out of the blue on social media, sending her sexually explicit photos and videos, prosecutors said.

Using a Facebook account with the name Seven Stars, he also made lewd references to what happened in the park, according to prosecutors and court records.

The girl, who was then 15, contacted Medford police to report a case of online harassment against Stars. She later told investigators about how he had assaulted her in Rosa Park, Meisel said.

After a monthslong investigation, a Washington County grand jury indicted Stars in May 2018 and he was arrested the following month.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh

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