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Man gets 25 years to life for kidnapping and raping 11-year-old girl in Santa Ana

April 14, 2023

More than two decades after an 11-year-old girl was kidnapped off a Santa Ana street and repeatedly raped, the first of two men to face trial for the violent sexual assaults received a sentence of 25 years to life on Friday.

Jose Andres Plascencia, now 42, wept in a Santa Ana courtroom as he heard his sentence for what Orange County Superior Court Judge Steven Bromberg described as an “unimaginable” and “unthinkable” assault of a young teen on Feb. 3, 1999.

An Orange County Superior Court jury in early February deliberated for less than a day before finding Plascencia guilty of kidnapping to commit a sex crime and five counts of rape. His co-defendant — 43-year-old Ismael Salgado — is being tried separately.

The 11-year-old girl was walking down Monta Vista Avenue with a 13-year-old friend when a Honda Civic pulled up next to them. The driver — later identified by authorities as Salgado and passenger — identified as Plascencia — convinced the two girls to get into the vehicle, according to testimony.

The girls quickly decided they wanted to get out of the car. The 13-year-old was able to escape the vehicle, while the 11-year-old was pulled by her hair and kept in the car as the driver pulled away.

Deputy District Attorney Kristin Bracic told jurors that Salgado first drove to a nearby gas station, where Plascencia kept his hand over the girl’s mouth as Salgado went inside to pay.

The men then drove the girl to empty parking lots at Carr Intermediate School and Valley High School, the prosecutor alleged, where they took turns raping her while the other held her down.

The girl was eventually dropped off near a relative’s home. She was able to pick the driver out of surveillance footage from the gas station, but police at the time were unable to identify either man.

In 2011, a DNA sample from Salgado was submitted to a law enforcement database after he pleaded guilty in an unrelated grand theft case. That DNA sample was eventually tied by investigators to the DNA collected in a sexual assault kit following the 1999 rape of the 11-year-old girl.

Investigators tracked Salgado down in Chicago, and began looking into people he was friends with in 1999, which prosecutors said led them to Plascencia. Investigators surreptitiously collected a DNA sample from a water bottle Plascencia left in a gym in Arizona, a sample the prosecutor said they also tied to the 1999 sexual assault.

During the recent trial, Plascencia’s attorney, Sharon Marshall, told jurors that Plascencia was too inebriated the day of the sexual assault to recall what happened. The defense attorney said that at that time of his life Plascencia frequently drank and did drugs, adding that he blacked out that night. She also questioned whether the girl willingly had sex, though given their respective ages she could not have legally consented.

Judge Bromberg said he did not believe that Plascencia is “the same troubled youth” he was in 1999, and now has his own family, many of whom were present for Friday’s sentencing. But the judge added that Plascencia is still “most assuredly responsible for his conduct” in 1999, and noted that the girl was particularly vulnerable.

“This kid was 11 years old and trusted the defendant and his friend when they offered her a ride,” Bromberg said.

Salgado is tentatively scheduled to face jury trial later this month, but Bromberg acknowledged it will likely be delayed due to an unrelated ongoing murder trial currently underway in the same courtroom.

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Orange County Register

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Man gets 25 years to life for kidnapping and raping 11-year-old girl in Santa Ana

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