A relative of a 52-year-old man testified Monday that he repeatedly molested her during visits as her brother slept nearby in a Santa Ana apartment.<\/p>\n
Felix Sanchez is charged with 10 felony counts stemming from the alleged sexual assaults of two girls dating back about 10 years.<\/p>\n
Sanchez\u2019s accuser, who is now 17, testified that when she and her brother visited the defendant on weekends, she would share a bed with her sibling while Sanchez slept on the floor.<\/p>\n
She tearfully testified that the first incident occurred when she was in third grade as she was drifting off to sleep.<\/p>\n
Sanchez \u201cwould carry me off the bed and put me on the floor,\u201d she testified. \u201cHe would start touching me, my private areas\u2026 He would say not to tell no one so he would not get in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
The alleged victim testified that she would \u201cthrow a fit\u201d whenever she was expected to visit Sanchez.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like telling my mom I wasn\u2019t feeling good,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it would never work.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she was in fourth or fifth grade, she told her mother about the alleged molestation during a car ride. She testified that her mother kept her hand over her mouth as she listened.<\/p>\n
The girl said it \u201cfelt like a relief,\u201d but she also \u201cfelt kind of ashamed of myself for not saying something sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2020, Sanchez lived with a girlfriend elsewhere in Santa Ana, where he allegedly molested another girl while the accuser\u2019s mother was bathing her baby brother shortly before the Fourth of July 2021, according to police testimony at Sanchez\u2019s preliminary hearing.<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Hans Corteza of the Orange County Public Defender\u2019s Office said his client\u2019s \u201cdating relationship\u201d with the woman was \u201cvery tumultuous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Corteza said the woman was prone to feeling \u201cjealous of Felix talking to other women.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after they moved in together with the defendant\u2019s parents, there was a violent incident, Corteza said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFelix\u2019s parents heard yelling and screaming\u201d and saw the girlfriend with her hands on the defendant\u2019s throat, Corteza said.<\/p>\n
The defendant\u2019s parents kicked the woman out, but Sanchez remained in contact with her, Corteza said. The woman allegedly told Sanchez that \u201cif she caught him cheating, it would be the end of him,\u201d the defense attorney said in his opening statement.<\/p>\n
After the couple broke up, Sanchez told the children, \u201cIf you ever need anything, let me know,\u201d according to Corteza.<\/p>\n
The defendant \u201ccared\u201d about the children, Corteza said.<\/p>\n
As for the other accuser, her brother told police he never saw anything suspicious, Corteza said. And the girl told investigators that sleepovers at Sanchez\u2019s home were uneventful, Corteza said.<\/p>\n
Deputy District Attorney Elise Levy said Dr. Jody Ward, an expert on \u201cchild sexual abuse accommodation syndrome,\u201d will testify during the trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A relative of a 52-year-old man testified Monday that he repeatedly molested her during visits as her brother…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[23690,163,165,164,78825,9515,15727,21777,1428],"class_list":["post-437747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-accused","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-begins","tag-girls","tag-molesting","tag-santa","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}