A former Honolulu taxicab driver convicted of sexually assaulting a female passenger was sentenced Wednesday to a five-year prison term.

Enio Ruben Tablas, 54, will have to register as a sex offender and pay restitution to the victim, and he also faces deportation. A jury found Tablas guilty of two counts of third-degree sexual assault late last year. He has been charged in a separate sex assault of another passenger, although no trial date has been set in that case.

Despite past convictions for theft, driving with a suspended or revoked license due to driving under the influence, failure to take a chemical test and numerous traffic violations, he was allowed to become a taxi driver because the city’s criminal background checks go back only two years and are limited to Hawaii. Tablas’ case was highlighted in a September Honolulu Star-Advertiser series on problems with taxi regulation. The case and the series were the catalysts behind several bills introduced by city and state officials to strengthen criminal background checks for taxi drivers.

During Wednesday’s sentencing, Circuit Judge Glenn J. Kim described Tablas’ actions as “premeditated and predatory.”

“You clearly had a plan that you wanted to carry out to target a young woman who was alone and intoxicated and control her and get as much sexually as you could,” Kim said. “Unfortunately for the victim in this case, she walked right into your lure.”

Following the sentencing, Tablas was taken away in handcuffs, while the now- 23-year-old victim, Kayla Rose, tearfully watched.

“It was the best closure that I could get,” said Rose outside the courtroom after the hearing. “I haven’t felt safe since the incident. It’s always in the back of my mind and my nightmares. I could not help but think he was waiting at my house to kill me before I came here. Now, all my paranoia is gone.”

Although the Star-Advertiser does not typically name victims of sex crimes, Rose said she wanted her name used because she wants to encourage other sexual assault survivors to seek justice.

“People need to be behind bars so they don’t do it again,” she said. “It’s time that we stand up and unite. And because of how I was that night, intoxicated or not, in a dress or not, alone or not, that should never have happened to me.”

Rose testified during the trial in November that she was walking home after a night of drinking with friends in Waikiki when Tablas offered her a ride in his cab. There were already two men in the cab, so Rose said she felt safe. Tablas dropped the men off first, then took Rose to Kahala Beach and sexually assaulted her. Afterward, he drove Rose home and told her, “Remember me — I’m the red cab.”

Tablas testified that he thought the July 5, 2014, encounter was consensual. While Hawaii law does not define consent, consent is not a valid defense in sex assault cases if someone can’t consent because of intoxication. Tablas said he didn’t realize the woman was intoxicated.

At the sentencing hearing, Tablas’ attorney, Harrison Kiehm, requested that Kim sentence Tablas to probation.

“Ultimately, his days are numbered,” Kiehm said. “He will be, at some point, deported.”

“I’m very sorry for what I’ve done,” Tablas said. “I have been found guilty, but I didn’t mean to do this.”

After his arrest in July 2014, Tablas posted bail and was allowed to resume driving a taxi until his conviction in November.

Rose said after the hearing that she supports efforts to strengthen background checks for taxi drivers. “Taxis are a public service that should be trusted no matter how intoxicated you are.”

Under the city’s current rules for criminal background checks, a person serving a lengthy sentence for sex assault could be eligible for a taxi driver certificate upon release from prison, if the conviction occurred more than two years earlier. Proponents of stronger rules, such as Charley’s Taxi owner Dale Evans, say that should be changed.

“If a person has 50 convictions and you can only look at the last two years, it won’t show up. If he’s been in jail for five years, it wouldn’t show up,” Evans, who served on a city task force that recommended 10-year nationwide background checks, said in an interview last week. “For certain types of crimes like sexual abuse and if they are on the sex offender registry, they should always be prohibited from driving a taxicab.”

Honolulu City Councilman Ron Menor said after the hearing that he introduced Bill 10 in response to the Tablas case and the Star-Advertiser’s taxi series. The bill extends criminal background checks to 10 years and also gives the city Customer Services Department administrator the right to suspend the certificate of a taxi driver who has been charged with serious crimes.

Robert Deluze, owner of Robert’s Taxi, said in an interview Wednesday that the Tablas case has helped advance taxi industry efforts to improve safety measures.

“Regulations should be made tougher,” Deluze said. “This is the deal: People make mistakes and it shouldn’t always be held against them. But in the case of a sexual predator, they should never be allowed to drive a cab.”

At the state Capitol, Sens. Will Espero (D, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point) and Clarence Nishihara (D, Waipahu-Pearl City) introduced a bill that would authorize the counties to access databases of the FBI or other agencies to conduct nationwide criminal background checks.

Espero said in an interview Wednesday that the bill was passed by the Public Safety Committee, but needs to be heard by the Judiciary Committee this week or it will die.

Tablas faces charges in the sexual assault of another female passenger in March 2014. In that case, a woman was walking alone on Nuuanu Avenue after a night of drinking when Tablas approached her in his red cab and offered her a free ride. She told police she passed out in the cab and awoke to find Tablas raping her. She said he told her to smile, took her picture and dropped her off near Ala Moana Center.

Court records show Tablas was charged with harassment for an incident in May 2013, when he was accused of waking a sleeping woman on a grassy area of Kalakaua Avenue at 5:45 a.m. The woman told police Tablas offered her a taxi ride, then pulled over near Kapahulu Avenue and touched her without her consent. The woman didn’t show up for trial, and the case was dismissed.

Deputy Prosecutor Victoria Chang said Tablas, originally from Guatemala, entered the United States illegally through Mexico. When he was 23, he was arrested in California on suspicion of kidnapping, robbery, rape and attempting to kill a passenger in his car who rejected his sexual advances, according to a 1985 Los Angeles Times story. Chang said that incident also involved a woman who was riding in his taxicab.