A former case manager at a shelter for children caught illegally crossing the border alone sexually abused six teenagers while he was supervising calls they made to relatives in Central America, a prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Mark Birney, a deputy district attorney for Orange County, said in opening statements that Victor Salazar molested the boys inside his closed-door office at a Fullerton shelter multiple times between 2007 and 2008.
“They feared that if they said something, they wouldn’t be believed. They’d be deported. They’d be ostracized for having another man touch them,” Birney said.
The teens did not want to stir up any trouble at the center, which provided them with food, clothing, a stable environment and the chance to go to school, he said.
Salazar, 30, is on trial for the alleged abuse. If convicted of all the charges, he could face up to a decade in prison.
His attorney, Lisa Eyanson, told jurors that children often grew emotional during telephone calls to family and any touching Salazar did was aimed only at comforting them. She also said the teen who initially reported the allegations had recently been disciplined by Salazar for throwing an object at a teacher.
“You’ll find there was no sexual intent to any touching that was done,” she said.
The case provides a window into a program overseen by the US Department of Health and Human Services for children swept up by border agents. Many of the children leave their homes in Central America to reunite with family in the US, while others flee abuse or set off in search of jobs to support their relatives.
More than 6,000 children hailing largely from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras were taken into federal custody in 2009. Most of them, like the alleged victims in the case against Salazar, were teenage boys, according to federal statistics.
The federal government contracts with shelters around the country, like the one in Fullerton, to house the children, while case managers try to determine whether they should be reunited with family in the US, placed in foster care or returned to their countries.
Salazar began working at the shelter for immigrant children when it opened in March 2006. He previously worked at another facility for teens where he had cleared background checks, and got rave reviews from the children and his fellow staff members, Joyce Capelle, executive director for Florence Crittenton Services of Orange County, said by telephone.
After a teenager at the center reported that he heard Salazar had inappropriately touched another child, Crittenton put Salazar on administrative leave and called police.
The investigation turned up a total of six children with similar complaints.
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