A Santa Ana church leader has been sentenced to 45 years to life for sexually assaulting three girls he met while going to a church in the city, authorities announced Friday.
Carlos Ramirez Valdez, a 61-year-old resident of Riverside, was convicted of 11 felony accounts related to sexually abusing a child under the age of 14 and three felony counts of sexually abusing a child 10 or younger, according to a press release from the Orange County District Attorney’s office.
During the assaults, Valdez was a church leader at Iglesia De Dios Ebenezer Church in Santa Ana. He is accused of luring a young girl into his van parked in the church’s parking lot or to the church’s basement to abuse the girl over and over during a seven-year period, according to the release. The girl was between the ages of 4 and 10 when she was assaulted.
Valdez reportedly became a pastor at another Santa Ana church after the assaults.
The girl later reported the assault to a school counselor.
In January 2020, a second girl told the Garden Grove Police Department that between 2014 to 2015 Valdez sexually assaulted her when he drove her home from church at times when the main pastor was not free to do so. The girl was reportedly 9 years old at the time of the abuse.
A third girl reported to the Riverside Police Department in January 2020 that Valdez had repeatedly sexually assaulted her in a backyard shed over an eight-month period in 2017. The girl was 7 and 8 during the time of the abuse.
“Churches should be safe sanctuaries not hunting grounds for child molesters,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “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.”