Elsinore Man Admits Sexually Assaulting Girl Multiple Times

RIVERSIDE (CNS) – A 49-year-old Lake Elsinore man who repeatedly sexually assaulted a girl pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of forcible rape and other offenses. Edwin Castro Sangalang admitted the rape counts and a charge of perpetrating three or more lewd acts on a minor under a plea agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. In exchange for his admissions, prosecutors agreed to drop 16 related felonies against Sangalang. The plea deal was announced during a pretrial hearing before Superior Court Judge Thomas Kelly at the Riverside Hall of Justice. The judge scheduled a sentencing hearing for June 14 and left the defendant’s bail set at $1 million. Sangalang is being held at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside. He’s facing a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. According to sheriff’s investigators, Sangalang began molesting the victim, whose identity was not released, while he resided in Chino Hills and Perris, when the girl was 9 years old. She was 13 when the last assault occurred in 2019. The victim’s relationship to the defendant, if any, was not disclosed. Detectives learned of the abuse after they were called to a residence in the 2400 block of Gazania Way in Lake Elsinore, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. Sufficient evidence was gathered to obtain an arrest warrant for the defendant, who was tracked down at his workplace in the area of Westwood Boulevard and Weyburn Avenue in Los Angeles, where he was taken into custody without incident in July 2019. He had no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County. Copyright 2023, City News Service, Inc.