A 39-year-old man twice convicted of sexually assaulting a young relative in Santa Ana starting when she was in second grade and continuing through the fourth grade was sentenced to 130 years to life in prison, according to court records obtained Tuesday.
Eduardo Difredo Bonilla-Gomez was first convicted in September 2021, but the conviction was reversed on appeal in February 2023 because a juror was dismissed for discussing the McMartin preschool trials involving allegations of sexual abuse at a Manhattan Beach preschool. He was convicted again in a new trial June 30.
When Bonilla-Gomez was sentenced Friday, he had 2,678 days credit behind bars.
Appellate court justices ruled the judge abused his discretion for dismissing the juror.
Bonilla-Gomez was convicted of four counts of sexual intercourse or sodomy with a child 10 years or younger, two counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child 10 years or younger and two counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor younger than 14, all felonies.
When the girl was 10 she confided in a friend, who told her mother, who alerted the victim’s mother, who called police, according to Santa Ana police.
The defendant showed pornography to the child and took pictures of her in the nude while engaged in a sex act, police said when he was charged in 2019.