UPDATE, APRIL 27, 1:32 P.M.: A jury today found Daniel Vlas Flores guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 7-year-old developmentally
disabled girl in 2009. The Huntington Beach 30-year-old faces a maximum sentence of 72 years in state prison at his June 6 sentencing in Westminster.
ORIGINAL POST, APRIL 19, 11:45 A.M.: Trial was scheduled to begin in Westminster today for a 30-year-old Huntington Beach man accused of raping a
7-year-old developmentally disabled girl in 2009.
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Daniel Vlas Flores faces life in state prison if he is convicted of the kidnapping and sexual assault charges filed against him.
On Aug. 19, 2009, the girl was playing with an 8-year-old
neighbor and a babysitter in the yard of a Huntington Beach apartment complex yard in the 7800 Block of Sycamore Avenue. While the babysitter wasn't
looking, Flores approached and asked the youngest girl to help him move furniture, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA).
Flores allegedly pulled the 7-year-old by the hand as he walked her to his
nearby apartment–and she repeatedly told him to let go of her.
Inside the apartment, Flores raped, sodomized and digitally penetrated the girl, the OCDA claims.
She was freed by her 8-year-old friend, who had gone looking for the 7-year-old and unlatched the sliding glass door of Flores' apartment. The victim's mother was told about the assault, which led to a Huntington
Beach Police Department investigation and Flores' arrest that same day. He was further linked to the crime through DNA evidence, the OCDA will tell the court.
Flores is charged with one felony count each of sexual
intercourse with a child 10 years old or younger, sodomy of a child 10
years old or younger, kidnapping to commit a sexual offense, and sexual
penetration of a child 10 years old or younger.
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.