A former Orange County pastor will spend decades behind bars after he used his trusted position as a spiritual leader to molest girls as young as 4 over the course of eight years, according to authorities.
Carlos Ramirez Valdez, 61, assaulted three children in places such as a church basement, his van and a backyard shed, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Prosecutors say he met the victims while he was church leader at Iglesia De Dios Ebenezer in Santa Ana and was hired as a pastor at another Santa Ana church, International Mission Church USA, before he was arrested in 2021.
His abuses took place from 2012 to 2019, prosecutors said.
One girl was molested by Valdez for seven years, starting when she was just 4 years old, prosecutors said. Valdez was accused of repeatedly assaulting the girl in a church basement and in his van.
She ultimately reported the abuse to a school counselor.
In 2020, another girl came forward to police in Garden Grove and reported that Valdez had sexually abused her in 2014 and 2015 when he offered to give her a ride home from church, prosecutors said. She was 9 years old at the time of the abuse.
A third victim reported told Riverside police in 2020 that Valdez had repeatedly sexually assaulted her in a backyard shed for eight months when she was 7 and 8 years old, prosecutors said.
Valdez was convicted this summer of 11 felony counts of lewd acts with a minor under 14 and three felony counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration of a child 10 or younger, prosecutors said. He was sentenced Friday to 45 years to life in prison.
Investigators shared some of the tactics they say Valdez used to lure his victims into vulnerable places during testimony at his preliminary hearing, according to City News Service. He told one victim to come into his van because he needed to comb her hair or required help with something, authorities said, and then would proceed to molest her.
He was also accused of showing one of the victims an adult film while he assaulted her at his Riverside home, according to City News Service.
“Churches should be safe sanctuaries not hunting grounds for child molesters,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “These young girls were subjected to unimaginable abuse by someone in a position of trust. The sexual exploitation of children will never be acceptable, and predators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
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