Man gets 25 years to life for rape of 11-year-old girl in 1999

Twenty five years after the crime, a 44-year-old man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on Friday, for the abduction and multiple rapes of an 11-year-old girl in Santa Ana.

Detectives were not able to make any arrests at the time of the 1999 crime, but investigators reopened the case in 2016 and submitted DNA evidence, which led to the arrests of two men, Ismael Salgado and Jose Andres Plascencia. 

Friday's sentencing was for Salgado, who was convicted in February on a count of kidnapping to commit rape and five counts of rape.

On Feb. 3, 1999 Salgado and Plascencia drove up to two girls near Jerome Park in Santa Ana and lured them into their car by offering them a ride.

The victim testified that she and her friend had just left the park's community center when two men in a Honda 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.

At some point, the friend said she wanted out of the car, so the men let her out, but did not let the victim out.

The two men drove the victim to various locations, including a gas station and two empty parking lots, where they took turns raping her.

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.

The following day, the girl was taken for a medical exam and was so badly bruised and swollen for some exams, that she had to return the next day, the attorney said during Plascencia's trial.

Salgado's attorney said that after the victim was raped, authorities distributed the surveillance photo throughout the neighborhood and put out a call through local news for help finding the suspect, but no one came forward saying it was Salgado, even though he lived in the area.

He argued that the surveillance video photo of the suspect from the gas station did not match a photo of his client taken around the time of the assaults.

A DNA match was made with Salgado, who lived in Santa Ana for most of his life but had moved to Chicago. DNA evidence also pointed to another man, who was not in the system. Detectives began looking at "known associates" of his at the time of the attack and narrowed in on Plascencia when the victim identified him from a photograph.

Plascencia, lived in Arizona and was placed under surveillance. Investigators collected a discarded water bottle Plascencia drank from and crime lab results matched his DNA to the evidence collected at the 1999 rapes.

In 2016, Salgado was arrested at his home in Chicago and Plascencia was arrested at a border crossing in Nogales, Ariz.

Placencia was convicted in the rapes last year and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.