Babysitting man sentenced to over 93 years for molesting girls, tied to Huntington Beach sting operation

A 60-year-old man has been sentenced to more than 93 years to life in prison for molesting girls, by way of getting women to babysit children as young as 4, and taking them to hotels so he could molest them.

An April 2023 sting by Huntington Beach detectives caught Jason V. Esparza arranging for a hotel encounter.

The Huntington Beach Police Department began investigating Esparza after receiving an anonymous cyber-tip from the Internet Crimes Against Children program in September 2022.

During the eight-month investigation, HBPD detectives began communicating with him, where an agent posed as a woman babysitting a 4-year-old girl, according to prosecutors.

During those communications, Esparza expressed his desire to perform very specific sexual acts on the child. Esparza was told that the child was in a Huntington Beach hotel room, and he was arrested by undercover detectives when he entered the room.

Esparaza was convicted of 13 felony counts of various child sex crimes.

Other offences include attacking one victim on September 20, 2006 and another one in September 2016. Originally from Warren, Ohio, Esparza also had connections to Long Beach and Fullerton.