A 69-year-old Anaheim man was convicted Tuesday of raping and sexually assaulting a girl when she was 8 years old in 1992.
Melesio Ceja Hernandez was convicted of two counts of rape and three counts of forcible lewd acts on a child, all felonies. Before the trial a felony count of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor younger than 14 for a second alleged victim was dismissed.
According to testimony from police at the defendant’s preliminary hearing, the victim said shortly after her mother died her father rented a room in their home and the defendant, who was a tenant, began sexually assaulting her in 1992.
The defendant’s wife was like a mother to her at the time so she was reluctant to come forward to authorities at the time, police testified.
Hernandez was arrested in April 2019 while Anaheim police were investigating an allegation that he molested a girl in January 2015 in Anaheim, Santa Ana police said when he was arrested.
While investigators were there, one of Hernandez’s housemates, who had been living with him since 1992, alleged that he had also sexually assaulted her while babysitting her when she was about 8 or 9 years old and they lived in Santa Ana, police said.
Hernandez was scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 17.