A 37-year-old Uber driver has been arrested for the alleged sexual assault of a woman passenger, and Santa Ana Police detectives fear there could be more victims.
A 44-year-old Bell Canyon man who posed as a modeling agent was sentenced to 12 years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenage girls in Orange County and possessing child pornography.
A 48-year-old man was charged with sexually assaulting two girls, including one who was 10 or younger, in Santa Ana.
A 28-year-old Rowland Heights man who worked with students in Orange County was arrested on suspicion of distributing child pornography.
A Huntington Beach middle school sent a warning letter to parents after a man tried to lure a student into his car.
Angel Sanchez is the Costa Mesa resident who was booked into the Santa Ana City Jail on the sexual assault charges—and held on $100,000 bail—following his arrest Saturday. Thursday evening, an unidentified woman requested an Uber ride from a company gathering to her home in Santa Ana. She was picked up by Uber driver Sanchez in a 2016 gray Toyota Sienna and driven to a street near her home, according to a police advisory. There, Sanchez sexually assaulted the woman while inside the Sienna, police say. She later ran away and immediately called police. Sanchez was arrested by Santa Ana Police Special Crimes detectives at his home in Costa Mesa.
Because he has been driving for Uber for more than a year, Santa Ana cops are releasing the photo below of a similar-looking vehicle in case there are other victims. Anyone who believes that is them—or knows someone who was assaulted by the suspect—is asked to call Santa Ana Police detectives at 714.245.8412.
Christopher Andrew Brown received his prison sentence on March 24 after having pleaded guilty in December to 13 felony counts, including sexual penetration by a foreign object, oral copulation of a minor, possession of child pornography, lewd acts on a child and using a minor for distribution of obscene material. In addition to prison, Brown must register as a sex offender for life.
From 2014-15, Brown worked as a freelance photographer who told victims he was also a modeling agent. The former children’s gymnastics coach committed a lewd act on a 15-year-old girl and sexually assaulted and took explicit photos of a second girl. Brown’s undoing came when his relatives discovered evidence of child pornography in his possession and called the cops. At the time of his arrest at a Newport Beach shopping center, police found child pornography on his personal computer and an external hard drive.
Joseph Margo‘s sexual assaults date back as far as October 2008 and continued through November 2016, according to authorities. He was charged March 23 with eight felonies: two counts each of sexual intercourse or sodomy with a child 10 or younger, committing a lewd or lascivious act with a minor younger than 14, oral copulation or sexual penetration of a child 10 or younger, lewd acts on a child aged 14 or 15 as well as a sentencing enhancement for there being more than one alleged victim. Margo is scheduled to be arraigned on April 14.
Anthony Robert Chau was arrested March 23 during an undercover operation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department that allegedly revealed he had distributed child pornography he did not produce but is believed to have downloaded from the Internet. Chau, who is due back in court May 23 to face a felony distribution of child pornography rap, posted $20,000 bail after his arrest and has been released. Since February 2016, he worked as a program leader and tutor for THINK Together, a Santa Ana nonprofit that provides after-school tutoring and physical education programs for students at 50 school districts across California The organization’s leaders and law enforcement notified the schools where Chau worked and parents of students he may have taught of the arrest. He worked at elementary and middle schools in Los Angeles County as well as within the Orange Unified and Tustin Unified school districts. Investigators stress that there is no evidence at this time linking children Chau taught with porn victims in the seized video footage. THINK Together officials claim Chau underwent Department of Justice and FBI background checks before being hired by the nonprofit and that no past arrests popped up.
A man in his 30s driving a car followed a girl near the corner of Springdale and Warner avenues last Monday morning, March 27, as she walking alone to Spring View Middle School, according to a letter sent home to Ocean View School District parents in Huntington Beach. The girl became fearful because he said he was headed in the same direction and suggested she get in the car. The eighth grader immediately called her mother and, once at school, told administrators, who contacted police. The driver was in a black sedan with tinted windows and paper license plates, according to the Huntington Beach Police Department.
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.