A 69-year-old Riverside man who sexually abused two girls more than a decade ago was sentenced Friday to 48 years to life in state prison.
Kenneth Donald Callahan pleaded guilty in November to three counts of lewd acts on a minor under 14 years old, as well as a sentence-enhancing allegation of targeting multiple victims in a sex crime, under a plea agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
In exchange for Callahan’s admissions, prosecutors dropped 11 related felony counts against him.
During a hearing Friday at the Riverside Hall of Justice, Superior Court Judge John Molloy certified the terms of the plea deal and imposed the sentence stipulated by the prosecution and defense.
Callahan was arrested in April 2022 following a two-month-long investigation by the Riverside Police Department’s Sexual Assault-Child Abuse unit.
According to Riverside police Officer Ryan Railsback, the defendant sexually molested the two victims, whose identities were not disclosed, in the mid-2000s, though the circumstances were not specified.
Railsback said the victims, now adults, came forward with the allegations in February 2022, culminating in the SACA investigation.
The defendant was “affiliated with Little League baseball in Riverside for many years as a coach and website designer,” the police spokesman said, but he did not confirm whether it was through these activities that Callahan met the victims.
He had no documented prior felony or misdemeanor convictions in Riverside County.