Man convicted of sexually abusing SLO County kids will stay in state hospital, judge rules
A man convicted of sexually abusing San Luis Obispo County children will remain in state hospital care, a San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge ruled.
After a four-day trial, Superior Court Judge Timothy S. Covello found that there was enough evidence to grant the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office’s petition for the civil commitment of 62-year-old Alfredo Arcilio Mendez as a sexually violent predator, the agency said in a news release Wednesday.
“This ruling will ensure that Mr. Mendez is detained in a hospital setting where he does not pose a threat to our community,” San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow said in the release. “We are committed to doing everything within our authority to protect the people of San Luis Obispo County from dangerous sexual predators like Mr. Mendez.”
Mendez was previously convicted of five sexually violent crimes across two California counties in separate criminal prosecutions, the District Attorney’s Office said, including forcible lewd acts and oral copulation on a 6-year-old child in San Diego County in 1986.
He was also convicted of forcible lewd acts on children ages 6, 8 and 10 in San Luis Obispo County in 1999, the release said.
According to the release, Mendez sexually assaulted three 7-year-old girls while working a daycare facility and was arrested in Long Beach County in 1985 for forcible rape of a child under 16.
The court also heard evidence that Mendez sexually assaulted a 3-year-old boy around 1999 or 2000, the release said.
Two of the nine survivors of Mendez’s crimes testified during the trial, the District Attorney’s Office said, and four psychologists who evaluated Mendez said that he has a diagnosed mental disorder of pedophilia, the release said.
“Two of the psychologists who assessed him found that his mental disorder makes him a substantial and well-founded danger to the safety of others and that it is likely that he will engage in predatory sexually violent criminal behavior if released into the community,” the District Attorney’s Office said in the release.”
Under California’s Sexually Violent Predator Law, district attorneys can petition for the continued detention of individuals beyond their parole period in when they have been sentenced to state prison for sexually violent offenses, diagnosed with a mental disorder and pose a present danger to others, the release said.
“Individuals committed under the SVP law are generally confined within a locked hospital setting,” the District Attorney’s Office said in the release.
After making his finding, Covello signed an order committing Mendez to Coalinga State Hospital, the release said.
His progress there will be reviewed bi-annually by the California Department of State Hospitals, the release said.
This case was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Kimberly R. Dittrich, who is assigned to the District Attorney’s Office’s Sexual Violence Unit. The case was investigated by the Grover Beach Police Department and District Attorney’s Office’s Bureau of Investigation.
This story was originally published June 23, 2023 at 10:49 AM.
