A 23-year-old man was sentenced Friday to four years in prison for groping four women along Santiago Creek Trail in Orange.
Saul Montiel-Tejada pleaded guilty May 10, and on Friday also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of indecent exposure. He was given credit for 800 days behind bars and was ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, according to court records.
He grabbed a woman’s buttocks while she was walking in the 4700 block of East Walnut Avenue about 7:40 p.m. Aug. 12, 2020, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. The victim called police and he was arrested nearby, prosecutors said.
Montiel-Tejada also grabbed a woman from behind on Aug. 9, 2020, on North Tustin Avenue near Cambridge Street. That woman managed to wriggle free and the assailant fled on a bicycle, prosecutors said.
He also groped a woman’s buttocks about 6:35 p.m. Aug. 2, 2020, in Grijalva Park, prosecutors said. They said he also grabbed a woman from behind on July 25, 2020, about 4:10 p.m. and dragged her into an alcove on Santiago Creek Trail near Tustin Street and La Veta Avenue before she managed to get free, prompting him to flee.
Montiel-Tejada pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping to commit a sex offense, two counts of assault with the intent to commit a sex assault and two counts of sexual battery by restraint, all felonies, along with two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.