Man Found Guilty Of Sexually Assaulting MoVal Girl Sentenced To Prison

MORENO VALLEY, CA — A 56-year-old man who sexually assaulted a Moreno Valley girl was sentenced Thursday to three years in state prison.

David Anthony Padilla of Moreno Valley pleaded guilty in January to two counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old. No charges were dismissed under the plea agreement, which Riverside County Superior Court Judge Thomas Kelly certified during the sentencing hearing Thursday at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

According to sheriff's Investigator James Merrill, detectives received information in January 2023 that Padilla had committed unspecified lascivious acts on a child, identified in court documents only as "C.B.," in the 11000 block of Hummingbird Place, near Swan Street, in Moreno Valley.

Merrill said sufficient evidence was gathered to obtain an arrest warrant for Padilla, who was taken into custody without incident at the intersection of Swan and Pigeon Pass Road on Feb. 3, 2023.

Court documents said the defendant molested C.B. in June and December 2022. The circumstances behind the acts, including the defendant's relationship, if any, to the victim were not disclosed.

At the time of his arrest, Padilla was also under investigation for alleged sexual assaults in the city of Upland and in Hawaii, but those investigations were separate from the one in Riverside County, and it was unclear whether authorities in the other locations intended to pursue criminal charges against the defendant.

He had no prior felony convictions in Riverside County.