Mariana Antonio Castro, who was convicted in February of sexually assaulting his stepdaughter beginning when she was 7 and having intercourse with her on an ongoing basis through her teens, was sentenced today to 61 years to life in state prison.
The 58-year-old Santa Ana resident had also fathered a child with the girl, who learned from a doctor on her 12th birthday she was pregnant.
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That unusual revelation prompted her mother to ask how the girl got pregnant at age 11. She replied her the stepfather knocked her up, and the woman stayed with the pervert anyway. When a social worker asked the girl who the father was, she answered it was a boy she met named “Charlie,” reports City News Service.
Mariano Antonio Castro Sex Stepdaughter, 58, Guilty of Ongoing Sex with Girl Impregnated at Age 11
Castro stayed away from the girl after she gave birth but soon resumed the sex that would last until she was 17, a year during which she finally mustered the courage to tell him to stop.
According to a sentencing statement sent today by the Orange County District Attorney's office, it was after the teen started going to a new church in 2011 that she confided in her pastor that Castro had impregnated her as a child. The pastor encouraged her to report the sexual assault to the police, and she did when they came to her Santa Ana home on an unrelated matter on April 19, 2011. DNA evidence would later prove Castro fathered her child.
He was convicted on Feb. 13 of two counts each of lewd acts on a child younger than 14 and aggravated sexual assault of a child with force or fear, and one count
each of rape under duress or menace and continuous sexual abuse of a child–all felonies.
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