Police arrested two men Thursday after they allegedly committed
lewd acts with a 13-year-old girl in an east Gilroy warehouse May
4.
Police arrested two men Thursday after they allegedly committed lewd acts with a 13-year-old girl in an east Gilroy warehouse May 4.
Jesus Hernandez, 41, a local transient, and Martin Lopez Gonzalez, 43, of the 100 block of Third Street, both were arrested on charges of committing lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14. Hernandez also was arrested on a charge of sexual penetration of a child under age 14 with a foreign object.
The incident, which occurred at an abandoned warehouse at Ninth and Alexander streets, took place less than six months after police arrested two homeless men who allegedly raped a 13-year-old girl in Christmas Hill Park. The details of the case were strikingly similar, and multiple signs point toward it being the same girl in both instances.
However, police would not confirm whether the same girl was the victim in both of those crimes.
Sgt. Jim Gillio did say this did not represent a trend of random sexual assaults on teenagers.
“It’s not like this is a public safety issue,” Sgt. Jim Gillio said.
The girl first met with about eight to 10 men, most of whom were transients, at the abandoned warehouse about 7 p.m. May 4, Gillio said. At the time, she drank alcohol with them, smoked marijuana and ingested a “white powdery substance,” he said.
The sexual assault took place after that time and before 6 a.m. the next day, when a counselor reported the incident to police, Gillio said.
There is no indication that anyone other than the suspects were in the warehouse at the time of the assault, Gillio said.
Police arrested both men at a warehouse at 199 E. Ninth St. at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, according to police. Gillio believed that it was the same warehouse where the crime occurred.
There was evidence at the scene of the incident that indicated that sexual activity had occurred, Gillio said, although he would not discuss the evidence.
At the time of the arrest, Gonzalez had outside warrants for driving under the influence of alcohol, battery on a peace officer or emergency personnel, giving a false report to a police officer, and making an illegal turn at an intersection. However, Gillio said neither Gonzalez nor Hernandez had been previously arrested in Gilroy.
Hernandez, who is hefty with a salt-and-pepper beard and a slight mullet, appeared increasingly worried as he read over his charges during his arraignment at the South County Courthouse in Morgan Hill on Monday afternoon. Gonzalez, who sat next to him, appeared contemplative as he did the same. Gonzalez was slender and cleanly shaven with hair combed back and part of a tattoo on his arm showing beneath the sleeve of his brown jail-issued shirt. He notified Judge Ray Cunningham that is name is Martin Lopez Gonzalez and not Martin Gonzalez Lopez, as police initially believed.
One of the suspects will be assigned a public defender and the other will be assigned an alternate defender, as the public defender’s office is not allowed to defend two people involved in the same case. The men are being held on $50,000 bail at the Santa Clara County Jail.
Public defender Louella Tsai asked that their plea hearing take place May 18 rather than Friday – when they could next be scheduled to appear in court – as there is a lot of information to review with both suspects and there is a language barrier as both men speak only Spanish.
Tsai said after the hearing that she had just received information pertinent to the case, so she could not comment on whether the girl involved was also the victim in Christmas Hill Park last year.
However, last week’s assault bears a striking resemblance to the assault of the 13-year-old girl that occurred Nov. 18. In that case, Gilroy transients Cresencio Evarado Blas, 29, and Benancio Quinones, 49, allegedly raped a 13-year-old girl in Christmas Hill Park in west Gilroy. The suspects “befriended” the girl near the red barn at the park, and then the victim followed the men to their encampment on the ranch side of the park between the levee and Uvas Creek, according to court documents. After that, she smoked marijuana, snorted cocaine and drank part of a can of beer with the two men before they allegedly raped her, police said. The girl left, then came back and was raped again, police said.
Blas and Quinones face five counts of child rape as well as charges of furnishing marijuana and a controlled substance to a minor. They are scheduled to appear in court for a plea hearing May 21 at the South County Courthouse.
Stuart Scott, the deputy district attorney who has been working on the Blas and Quinones case and who will be assigned to the new case, said he could not reveal whether the victim is the same girl in both incidents.
Regardless of who the victim was, Scott said the charges make sense.
“You cannot have consensual sex with a 13-year-old,” he said.
Staff Writer Sara Suddes contributed to this report.
