Man gets 25 years old for raping girl in Santa Ana in 1999

A 44-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in prison for the kidnapping and multiple rapes of an 11-year-old girl 25 years ago in Santa Ana.

Ismael Salgado was convicted Feb. 1 of kidnapping to commit rape and five counts of rape, all felonies.

Assistant District Attorney Kristin Bracic argued for 50 years to life in prison.

Salgado “took advantage of a young victim by luring her into his vehicle for a ride and then exerting complete control over her,” Bracic said in a sentencing memorandum.

She added that his “disturbing abuse (of the victim) warrants consecutive sentencing; as well as the fact that he refuses to take responsibility for his behavior.”

Salgado “instilled a fear in the victim from which she will never recover,” Bracic said. “To make matters worse, he insists on complete irresponsibility, meaning he has no remorse whatsoever for what he has done.”

In closing arguments at the trial, Bracic pointed to images from a gas station surveillance video that showed Salgado buying gas — just as the victim claimed — before being raped repeatedly in two different locations.

“Ismael Salgado is the driver” of the Honda Accord that he filled with gas after he and his friend Jose Andres Plascencia, 43, kidnapped the victim on Feb. 3, 1999, Bracic said.

Bracic reminded jurors during closing arguments that a Santa Ana police officer had testified that he had stopped Salgado in a car that matched the description of the suspect vehicle at the time of the rapes. The car’s license plate also partially matched a license plate provided by a witness, she added.

“They also have DNA,” Bracic argued.

Salgado’s DNA was found in the victim’s genitals, and his genetic material was also on her breasts, consistent with the girl’s statement that the driver of the vehicle bit her on the breast during the attack, Bracic told jurors.

Salgado’s attorney, Peter Boldin of the alternate public defender’s office, argued that the suspect’s surveillance video photo from the gas station did not match a photo of his client taken at the time of the attacks.

“These are two completely different individuals,” Boldin argued.

Boldin also argued that the victim’s statements to police contained inconsistencies even in the days following the assaults.

“These aren’t just little things,” he said. “They say, ‘I wasn’t raped in the front seat’ … but that’s completely different than what she said two days before.”

Boldin said that after the victim was raped, authorities distributed the surveillance photo throughout the neighborhood and put out a call on local news for help finding the suspect. But no one came forward and claimed it was Salgado, even though he lived in the area.

Boldin also downplayed the DNA evidence, arguing that his client was a “minor contributor.” He suspected that the defendant’s semen may not have been removed from the back seat of the car and may have come from a previous sexual encounter and somehow ended up on the victim.

“This is consistent with a transfer (of DNA) and not a direct deposit,” Boldin said.

Boldin admitted that Salgado and Plascencia were friends who were on the high school basketball team. Placencia was convicted of the rapes last year and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

The victim testified that she and her then 13-year-old friend were walking in Jerome Park in the early evening of February 3, 1999, and had just left the community center there when two men in a Honda pulled up and encouraged the girls to come inside.

“There were two guys trying to get our attention,” she testified. “We said ‘No.'” But the men “wouldn’t leave us alone,” she testified. Eventually, her friend agreed to get in the car and the victim followed her, she said.

The victim sat in the front seat and her friend sat in the back seat, she said. The driver was short — about 5 feet 7 inches tall — but his friend was about 6 feet tall, she testified.

The victim’s friend said she wanted to get out of the car, so they let her get out on Myrtle Street, but when the victim also tried to get out, “the driver pulled me in and pulled me by my hair,” she testified.

Her friend “got out of the car and started screaming,” the victim said. As the victim continued to struggle to get out, the passenger pushed her from the back seat to the front seat, she testified.

The driver went to a gas station at Raitt Street and Edinger Avenue, where the passenger again pushed me “to the floor” of the car and “yelled, ‘They’re going to kill me,'” she testified.

According to Bracic, Salgado, who was the driver at the time, went to get gas.

The two then drove across the street to a secluded parking lot at Carr Intermediate School, where Salgado allegedly raped her in the front seat, the victim testified. When Salgado finished, Plascencia began sexually assaulting and raping her, she testified.

The girl was then driven to Valley High School, she testified. She couldn’t remember what happened along the way because “I kind of forgot.”

When they arrived at the school, “they continued to rape me,” she said.

Eventually, the two of them “dropped me off on a corner,” which happened to be near her grandmother’s house, she said. Her grandmother was out of town, but her aunt was and the police were called.

After the victim’s friend escaped, she wasn’t sure what happened, so she went home to wait for an answer from her, Bracic said in court documents. When the friend didn’t hear from the victim, she went to her family’s apartment to see if she was OK, and by that time police had already been called, the prosecutor said.

The girl was taken for a medical examination the next day and a nurse collected evidence. The girl was so “severely injured” that she was too swollen for some examinations and had to return the next day, Bracic said during Plascencia’s trial.

The evidence collected was “consistent with a brutal sexual assault,” Bracic said.

Police tracked down surveillance video from the gas station, but investigators were unable to identify the suspects, Bracic said.

In 2016, the case was reopened when officials received a DNA hit on Salgado, Bracic said. Police narrowed down Salgado’s other friends from 1999, focused on Plascencia, and investigators were able to establish a DNA match, she said.

Related Posts

Fallen tree blocks Highway 174 on Edisto Island

Diddy’s former collaborator John Legend says he is “appalled” by the “shameful” sexual assault claims against the controversial rapper

Accident with injuries on Highway 4 eastbound in Hercules leads to closure of all lanes