GILROY
– Police arrested a 64-year-old Morgan Hill barber on suspicion
of performing multiple sex acts with one or more children in
Gilroy, police said.
GILROY – Police arrested a 64-year-old Morgan Hill barber on suspicion of performing multiple sex acts with one or more children in Gilroy, police said.
Joe Isabel Vera, who owns Joe’s Barber Shop on Monterey Road and lives on Uvas Road west of Morgan Hill, was arrested shortly after noon Friday at his barber shop. He is in county jail with a $75,000 bail.
Vera was arraigned in court Monday in San Martin and charged with one count of performing a lewd act with a child under 14 years old and two counts of oral copulation with a person under 18.
Police originally booked Vera on slightly different charges. Instead of two counts of oral copulation, one was a lewd act with a child “by use of force, violence, duress, menace, or fear of immediate and unlawful bodily injury on the victim or another person,” as worded in the California Penal Code.
A lewd act charge, by force or otherwise, carries a maximum sentence of eight years in state prison.
An oral copulation charge carries no more than one year.
Vera committed sex crimes in the city of Gilroy, according to city police Sgt. Jack Robinson.
Police did not release details of what Vera is accused of doing.
The shop is still open, with one of the barbers running it for now.
Vera is scheduled to enter a plea in court Friday morning.
