A 42-year-old Santa Ana man has been arrested for allegedly meeting a 12-year-old girl on Facebook and then driving her to school twice a week and molesting her.
Manuel Arevalo Parada is accused of even showing up at a large family gathering of the Santa Ana girl's without raising suspicions by blending into the crowd.
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Police were called Oct. 17 to Carr Intermediate School about a child who was possibly molested. The girl, who is now 13, told investigators she had become friends with Parada over Facebook the year before.
Over the summer, they hatched a plan to meet face-to-face and would go on to get together several times with the man engaging in what police called “lewd conduct.”
The girl's parents were unaware of the relationship or even that Parada had been driving her to school, according to police, who arrested him last Friday morning. He was later booked into Santa Ana Jail on charges of lewd acts with a child under 14.
The alleged brazen behavior of Parada is raising fears among police that there may be other victims. Anyone with information is urged to call investigators at 714.245.8042.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.