A 48-year-old man was sentenced to 56 years to life in prison for molesting a girl in his family for about nine years when they lived in Santa Ana and Anaheim, starting when she was 4 years old.
When the victim was 15 years old she told a counselor at Saddleback High School in Santa Ana in May 2019 about the years of abuse from Felipe Horta Arriaga, prosecutors said in a trial brief.
The victim said she told her mother about the abuse when she was in first or second grade but her mother didn’t come forward because she feared the defendant, prosecutors said.
The girl’s mother told police Arriaga threatened to attack her and take her children to Mexico and have her deported if she called the authorities to report the abuse, prosecutors said.
Arriaga was convicted Feb. 25 of single counts each of lewd act on a child age 14 or 15, sex with a child 10 or younger, oral copulation or sexual penetration of a child 10 years or younger, and five counts of lewd acts with a minor younger than 14, all felonies. He was sentenced Friday.