SANTA ANA (CNS) - A woman testified Tuesday that she was repeatedly raped by two men who abducted her in Santa Ana in 1999 when she was 11 years old.
Ismael Salgado, 44, is charged with a count of kidnapping to commit rape and five counts of rape, all felonies. Co-defendant Jose Andres Plascencia, 43, was convicted and sentenced last year to 25 years to life in prison.
The woman said that she and her friend, who was 13 at the time, were walking around Jerome Park and had just left the community center there during the early evening of Feb. 3, 1999, when two men in a Honda car pulled up and encouraged the girls to get in.
"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, so the victim followed, she said.
The victim got in the front seat and her friend was in the back seat, she said. The driver was short -- about 5-foot-4 -- but his friend was about 6- feet tall, she testified.
The victim's friend said she wanted out of the car so they let her out on Myrtle Street, but when the victim also tried to get out, the driver "pulled me in, pulling my hair," she testified.
Her friend "got out of the car and started yelling," the victim said. As the victim continued to struggle to get out, the passenger stuffed her down in the front seat from the back seat, she testified.
The two drove to a gas station at Raitt Street and Edinger Avenue where the passenger again "pushed me down to the floor" of the car as she "yelled, `they're going to kill me," she testified.
Salgado, who was the driver at the time, went in to buy gas, according to Deputy District Attorney Kristin Bracic.
The two drove across the street into a secluded parking lot of Carr Intermediate School where Salgado allegedly raped her in the front seat, the victim testified. When Salgado was done, Plascencia began sexually assaulting and raping her, she testified.
The three then drove to Valley High School, she testified. She could not remember what happened while en route because, "I kind of blacked it out."
When they arrived at the school, "They continued raping me," she said.
Eventually, the two "dropped me off at a corner" that coincidentally was near her grandmother's home, she testified. Her grandmother was out of town, but her aunt was there and the police were called.
After the victim's friend got away she wasn't sure what happened, so she went home to wait to hear from her, Bracic said in court papers. When the friend did not hear from the victim she walked to her apartment to see if she was OK and by that time police had been called, the prosecutor said.
The girl was taken for a medical exam the next day and a nurse gathered evidence. The girl was so "badly bruised" she was too swollen for some exams, so she had to return the next day, Bracic said in 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 could not identify the suspects, Bracic said.
In 2016, the case was revived when officers received a DNA hit with Salgado, Bracic said. Police narrowed down other friends of Salgado's from 1999, focused on Plascencia and investigators were able to get a DNA match, she said.
Salgado's attorney, Peter Boldin of the Alternate Defender's Office, deferred an opening statement in the trial.