Stamford — A city man was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to raping two women at knifepoint on two separate occasions.

Judge Gary White ordered Mayklin Ruano-Diaz, 19, a 20-year prison sentence, suspended after 15 years, at the state Superior Court in Stamford on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, Ruano-Diaz pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault and first-degree aggravated sexual assault as a part of a deal with state prosecutors.

As a part of the deal, Ruano-Diaz, who was a minor when he committed the rapes, faced between 10 to 15 years in prison, depending on the judge's decision.

Supervisory State's Attorney Michelle Manning said the first incident occurred in August 2019, when a woman reported to police that she was walking home from work at 3 a.m. when a man came up from behind her, clamped his hand over her mouth and put a knife to her face.

Manning said the man then proceeded to drag the woman to the side of a nearby house and raped her. The woman escaped as the man, later identified as Ruano-Diaz, began to dress himself.

Months later, in October 2019, a woman reported to police that she was walking home on Lockwood Avenue when a man pulled a "near identical" act, forcibly catching the victim and raping her, Manning said.

The second time, however, Ruano-Diaz was caught on several surveillance footage systems as he stalked the victim several miles, from downtown Stamford to the East Side, according to Manning.

"The actions that he did those two nights were deliberate, were awful and were dangerous to everybody and traumatic. I can't even express the trauma that these victims underwent," Manning said during Ruano-Diaz's sentencing on Wednesday.

For these "egregious" acts, Manning asked the judge to consider the maximum prison sentence of 15 years — a sentence she said would have been "much higher" had Ruano-Diaz committed the acts as an adult.

Ruano-Diaz's attorney Benjamin Aponte, on the other hand, asked the judge to consider sentencing his client to 10 years.

Aponte explained that Ruano-Diaz, a Guatemalan native, had experienced a childhood of trauma, including the brutal murder of his father. As such, Aponte said Ruano-Diaz had turned to drugs like cocaine and crack cocaine to help dull the pain.

"He is very embarrassed for his actions," Aponte said.

Aponte claimed that Ruano-Diaz was capable of being rehabilitated given the correct therapies and treatments while in prison.

For his part, Ruano-Diaz also said he was remorseful for the acts of those two nights, which he claims he doesn't remember because he was highly intoxicated.

"I feel so bad," Ruano-Diaz said through tears. "I'm going to try and be a better person, for me and my family."

White, however, found Ruano-Diaz's actions, which he called "vile, brutal and totally unjustified," to outweigh his apparent remorse.

In addition to the giving Ruano-Diaz a max sentence under the deal with prosecutors, White also sentenced the 19-year-old to 20 years of probation. He also stipulated that Ruano-Diaz would be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.