SANTA ANA — A 61-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 138 years to life in prison for sexually assaulting five girls, including victims he met as a church volunteer.

Jesus Heras Garcia was a volunteer at the Case de Vida Church in Corona and became a close family friend of the victims, police said. Investigators later tracked down two more girls who reported they were abused, police said.

Garcia was convicted Nov. 13, 2024, of 12 counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, another count involving a child 10 or younger, two counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor younger than 14 and one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child, all felonies.

The charges date back to 1986, according to court records.

Three sisters when they were in their late teens and mid-20s reported to Santa Ana police in December 2018 that the defendant who they met through a church had molested them, police said.

In another case reported to the Placentia Police Department in 2010, a woman who was 16 years old at the time said she had been molested by Garcia.

In 2018, a 21-year-old told police she had been sexually assaulted multiple times at the defendant’s home in Riverside when she was seven years old.

The Orange County Register contributed to this story.

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