A relative of a 52-year-old man testified Monday that he repeatedly molested her during visits as her brother slept nearby in a Santa Ana apartment.
Felix Sanchez is charged with 10 felony counts stemming from the alleged sexual assaults of two girls dating back about 10 years.
Sanchez’s accuser, who is now 17, testified that when she and her brother visited the defendant on weekends, she would share a bed with her sibling while Sanchez slept on the floor.
She tearfully testified that the first incident occurred when she was in third grade as she was drifting off to sleep.
Sanchez “would carry me off the bed and put me on the floor,” she testified. “He would start touching me, my private areas… He would say not to tell no one so he would not get in trouble.”
The alleged victim testified that she would “throw a fit” whenever she was expected to visit Sanchez.
“I was like telling my mom I wasn’t feeling good,” she said. “But it would never work.”
When she was in fourth or fifth grade, she told her mother about the alleged molestation during a car ride. She testified that her mother kept her hand over her mouth as she listened.
The girl said it “felt like a relief,” but she also “felt kind of ashamed of myself for not saying something sooner.”
In 2020, Sanchez lived with a girlfriend elsewhere in Santa Ana, where he allegedly molested another girl while the accuser’s mother was bathing her baby brother shortly before the Fourth of July 2021, according to police testimony at Sanchez’s preliminary hearing.
Defense attorney Hans Corteza of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office said his client’s “dating relationship” with the woman was “very tumultuous.”
Corteza said the woman was prone to feeling “jealous of Felix talking to other women.”
Shortly after they moved in together with the defendant’s parents, there was a violent incident, Corteza said.
“Felix’s parents heard yelling and screaming” and saw the girlfriend with her hands on the defendant’s throat, Corteza said.
The defendant’s parents kicked the woman out, but Sanchez remained in contact with her, Corteza said. The woman allegedly told Sanchez that “if she caught him cheating, it would be the end of him,” the defense attorney said in his opening statement.
After the couple broke up, Sanchez told the children, “If you ever need anything, let me know,” according to Corteza.
The defendant “cared” about the children, Corteza said.
As for the other accuser, her brother told police he never saw anything suspicious, Corteza said. And the girl told investigators that sleepovers at Sanchez’s home were uneventful, Corteza said.
Deputy District Attorney Elise Levy said Dr. Jody Ward, an expert on “child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome,” will testify during the trial.