A 39-year-old former Saddleback Valley Unified School District bus driver pleaded guilty Tuesday to molesting a 12-year-old girl and was immediately sentenced to eight years in prison.
Shane Norman Crawford of Laguna Hills was also ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, Deputy District Attorney Nicole Nicholson said.
“That will keep him away from all children for the rest of his life,” Nicholson said, adding that it was key to the plea negotiated with prosecutors.
Crawford pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor. Two other lewd conduct charges related to a 3-year-old girl and a 13- year-old boy were dismissed as part of the plea deal, Nicholson said.
Crawford worked for First Student Transportation Services, which provided buses for the school district at the time of his arrest in December 2011. None of the victims were children he met on the job, sheriff’s investigators said.
Crawford had been a school bus driver in south Orange County for about a dozen years, according to sheriff’s investigators.
Crawford molested the 12-year-old girl in the apartment complex where he lived. According to prosecutors, Crawford gained access to the children when he befriended their parents.
The case came to light when the 12-year-old told her grandmother what happened.
— City News Service