HE SEXUALLY ABUSED FOUR CHILDREN FOR YEARS IN HIS MERCED COUNTY HOME, PROSECUTORS SAY
November 14, 2019
Vikaas Shanker
Merced Sun-Star
A 65-year-old El Nido man was sentenced to 61 years to life in prison for sexually abusing four children under 14 years old, the Merced County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday.
Felipe Rubalcaba was sentenced Thursday after the four victims gave statements about how the abuse affected their lives, prosecutors said in a news release.
“He violated my sense of security, my sense of safety and my sense of self,” one of the victims told Merced County Judge Jeanne Schechter, who handed down the sentence.
One of the victims, who now is an adult, reported to Merced County Sheriff’s deputies in October 2015 that she endured repeated sexual abuse from Rubalcaba from when she was 5 years old until she became a teenager, the release states.
As detectives investigated the case, three more victims reported they had been molested by Rubalcaba at his home in El Nido, according to the release.
Rubalcaba was arrested and charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse and lewd and lascivious acts on children.
During his trial, prosecutors played a recorded phone call in which Rubalcaba didn’t deny inappropriately touching one of the victims.
Rubalcaba was found guilty on Sept. 23 by a Merced County jury of four counts of lewd and lascivious acts on three children under 14 years old, along with one count of sexual abuse on a child under 14 years old.
Message from Executive Director Laura A. Ahearn: Please visit our website at www.crimevictimscenter.org for news, information and resources in your community.
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