A Santa Ana man has been sentenced for molesting the young sons of family friends for a span of 14 years, officials announced.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office said Alex Mauricio Padilla Beltran, 58, was sentenced on Friday to 293 years to life.
Between 2003 and 2017, Beltran preyed on and sexually assaulted seven boys between the ages of 6 and 13-years-old in O.C., according to the DA’s Office.
“In one of the incidents, Beltran locked a bedroom door and held down a six-year-old boy while he orally copulated the child,” the DA’s Office said in a release.
In addition to these local charges, officials said the convicted predator previously pled guilty to felony coercion and misdemeanor conspiracy to commit a crime in connection with a 2009 incident in Las Vegas involving the sons of the contractor he hired to renovate his home.
According to the DA, Beltran groped and kissed the 12-year-old son on the mouth, and then gave him $10 and told him not to tell his parents.
The young boy told his parents of the abuse regardless of the bribe after his mother noticed him “acting oddly,” according to the DA’s Office.
Then, the boy’s 10-year-old brother also told his parents that Beltran took him into a backroom and groped him as well.
The DA’s office said Beltran was sentenced to probation by a Nevada judge and ordered to stay away from minor children.
“Far too often, it’s not just the monsters hiding under the bed that we have to worry about,” said DA Todd Spitzer. “It’s the monsters hiding in plain sight at family birthday parties and around our kitchen tables, waiting for the perfect moment to prey on an innocent child for their sadistic sexual gratification. The scars of child sexual abuse last a lifetime as does the guilt parents must live with knowing their child was in the arms of a parent’s worst nightmare instead of a trusted friend.”
The DA’s Office said Beltran was convicted in November 2024 of 16 felony counts of a lewd and lascivious act with a minor under 14 years old, four felony counts of attempted lewd act upon a child under 14, three felony counts of oral copulation of a child 10 years old or younger and one felony count of forcible lewd act upon a child under 14.
