The week’s still guilty defendant is a former Garden Grove police officer who sexually assaulted three women he dated.
The accused include a popular Vietnamese entertainer, one of Mariposa County’s “most wanted” and a possible serial junk flasher.
And to prove we’re an equal opportunity reporter of alleged pervitude, we end with the acquittal of a man who was accused of molesting two daughters of his ex-girlfriend.
Jesse Andrew Green, the ex-cop who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in November 2013., had his conviction upheld by an appellate panel last week. The three Fourth District Court of Appeal justices did scold Huntington Beach Police Detective Michael Szyperski for possibly falsifying evidence and committing perjury to help the prosecution. But the panel found the misconduct did not jeopardize 39-year-old Green’s right to a fair trial—a standard which has to be met to overturn a conviction. “Some of 
Szyperski’s testimony was highly questionable, to be sure. But we do not believe the extreme remedy of dismissal was constitutionally mandated in this case. Nor do we believe appellant has shown any other grounds for reversal,” states the panel’s ruling. Green lost his job as a police officer Nov. 24, 2010, about seven weeks after being charged with sexually assaulting two of the victims.. (The third emerged following publicity about the case.) All three women “liked” Green and had consensual sex with the Huntington Beach resident, but at some point he forced each to perform a sex act to which they objected while he insulted them and claimed he was giving them a sexually transmitted disease, according to prosecutors.
Well-known Vietnamese entertainer “Minh Beo,” whose real name is Minh Quang Hong, is charged with felony counts of oral copulation of a minor, attempting to commit a lewd act upon a child under the age of 14 and meeting with a minor with the intent to engage in lewd conduct, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office, which fears there may be other victims and counts to come. If the 38-year-old Garden Grove resident is convicted of those counts, he could do his entertaining for five years and eight months in state prison and have to register as a sex offender for life once he gets out. Held on $1 million bail, Hong is scheduled for a continued arraignment hearing on April 15 in Santa Ana. Hong allegedly traveled from Vietnam to Orange County and, at a Huntington Beach radio station talent show on March 20, told dancers he was hosting auditions for a video project. Three days later, he allegedly orally copulated a minor boy who’d come to audition, the OCDA says. The boy reported the crime to the Garden Grove Police Department, and the next day an undercover officer posing as a minor under the age of 14 communicated with Hong, who allegedly set up a meeting with the “boy” (actually a cop) with the intent of committing a sexual assault, the OCDA claims. Hong was then arrested. Anyone with additional information or who believes that they may have been a victim is encouraged to contact Supervising District Attorney Investigator Mark Gutierrez at 714.347.8794.
David Santiago Garcia ran a red light in Santa Ana on Easter Sunday, led police on a chase and after he was captured was discovered to be among the “most wanted” in Mariposa County—”home of Yosemite”—for oral copulation and sexual exploitation of a child, among other charges., according to the Santa Ana Police Department. The 26-year-old Santa Ana resident allegedly ran the red at Flower Street and McFadden Avenue about 11:30 p.m. Easter Sunday and refused to pull over for a traffic stop, triggering the pursuit, said Cpl. Anthony Bertagna. Garcia drove into a neighborhood and bailed out of the car, but officers on foot, with help from a police helicopter, found him hiding in a backyard in the 900 block of West Wilshire Avenue, Bertagna said. Garcia was booked on suspicion of driving drunk, felony evading police and driving on a suspended or revoked license, but a check to see whether he had a criminal record uncovered the Mariposa County warrants alleging forced oral copulation and sexual exploitation of a child, dissuading a witness from testifying, obstructing police and making criminal threats, Bertagna said. Dude gets around: Garcia was also wanted in another county on suspicion of domestic violence,
stealing a car, using forged credit cards and vandalism, said Bertagna, who expected Garcia would be sent back to Mariposa County to face the music there.
Marlo Ezekiel Afuang is accused of flashing his junk to a woman in Costa Mesa twice and perhaps to others dating back eight months, according to the Costa Mesa Police Department. Around 6:30 p.m. on March 22, a man exposed himself to the victim in the 3400 Block of Summerset Circle, and she told responding the officers the same man did the same thing to her in November, says Lt. Paul Beckman. She gave a description of the man and a blue Toyota Camry he was in, which led to 24-year-old Afuang’s arrest outside his Costa Mesa residence on suspicion of indecent exposure, Beckman says. That won Afuang a trip to the city jail and a transfer to the Orange County Jail. Meanwhile, Beckman says his detectives are investigating whether Afuang can be tied to similar incidents in the general area for the past eight months. Anyone with information on this incident or similar incidents is asked to contact Detective Rob Dimel at 714.754.5363.
Ignacio Gaytan Hernandez broke down and cried as the verdicts were read last week finding him not guilty of molesting the two daughters of his former girlfriend. Jurors had deliberated about four hours before acquitting the 40-year-old Santa Ana man. The girls, who were 9 and 11 at the time of the alleged incidents and 11 and 14 now, “had credibility issues and there was a lot of doubt,” Hernandez’s attorney Sara Ross explained to City News Service. “They had lied before—they had made false accusations before. And their statements were pretty inconsistent.” Hernandez, who had been in custody since his mid-October arrest, would have been looking at up to 90 years to life in state prison had he been convicted. Ironically, he had tried to get Ross removed from the case just as it was about to go to trial, but the judge would not let him.
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.