A 50-year-old Anaheim man molested two female relatives, starting when one victim was 12 and continuing for three years, eventually raping her in her bedroom, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.
One victim, who is now 16, testified she was first molested by Ramon Vallejo when her mother sent her to the defendant’s apartment upstairs in the same complex to fetch something. She testified Vallejo rubbed her breasts.
The sexual abuse escalated until she was 15, when he made his way into her bedroom and raped her in January of last year, Deputy District Attorney Rick Zimmer alleged.
“Most of the force that was used was psychological, manipulation, it was fear,” Zimmer said. “He would tell her not to say anything, ‘don’t tell your mother or I’m going to jail and you’re going to jail.”‘
When he allegedly raped her, he told the victim, “if you scream I’m going to kill your mom,” Zimmer said.
A few days later, Vallejo groped the girl in the laundry room, prompting her to tell her church pastor, who relayed the confession to her mother, who called police, Zimmer said.
Vallejo told police he did not force himself on the girl, Zimmer said.
“He had the audacity to keep saying it was all consensual,” the prosecutor said.
Another victim, who is now 18, was in the seventh grade when the defendant kissed her on the neck and pressed his groin up against her buttocks, Zimmer said. She resisted and he didn’t attack her again, according to the prosecutor.
Vallejo, who is charged with multiple counts of molesting and sexually assaulting the two girls, should not be convicted of forcing sex on the victims, defense attorney Lisa Eyanson said.
Vallejo “admitted inappropriately touching” the girls, Eyanson said. “The real issue in this case was whether there was any real force.”
The defense attorney said she planned to argue there was no “element of force” in the attacks.
The defendant’s family relationship to the victims was not disclosed in some media reports to help protect the identities of the young girls.
–Staff and wire reports