Victor Joseph Espinoza, whose girth and baby-sized fat pocket in the neck area inspired our OC's Scariest People 2012 cover illustration, pleaded guilty Thursday to grabbing a 10-year-old boy walking to soccer practice and was sentenced to 32 months in jail.
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“Sick Vic” copped to false imprisonment and a charge of street terrorism with a gang sentencing enhancement was dismissed.
A 19-year-old woman was walking her cousin to soccer practice at Delhi Park in Santa Ana about 7:20 p.m. on Oct. 4 when 54-year-old, 425-pound Espinoza called the boy over to look at a tattoo on his arm then grabbed the child. Which brings up this important safety tip, children: If a guy who looks like this …
… calls you over for any reason, run the frig the other way. It's not like you'll have to run fast. As we noted at the time, the question was not whether Espinoza grabbed the boy, the question is did he hide the lad in his neck.
OH, SNAP! Almost left out the really creepy part: After grabbing the 10-year-old, Espinoza began sniffing him. We imagine he next would have ordered, “Get in my belly!” had the boy not broken free. Perhaps Fat Bastard thought he was in Deli Park.
The kid ran to his soccer coach, who ran down Espinoza and tackled him to the ground with a Refrigerator Perry-like thud. But Sick ol' Vic managed to get away and hide behind a tree (what, like one of those big fucking thick redwoods up north?) before police arrived to take him in.
Victor Joseph Espinoza, the Ugliest Police Mugshot of the Week, Nay, Year, Nay, EVER!
Conviction on the original charges, without a guilty plea, could have had Espinoza bending prison bunk slats for 15 years.
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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.