A Santa Ana pastor has been sentenced to 45 years to life in prison for sexually assaulting three young girls.
Carlos Ramirez Valdez, 61, was convicted of 14 counts related to the child sexual abuse cases that happened while he was the leader of Iglesia De Dios Ebenezer Church between 2012 and 2019. He became a pastor at another Santa Ana church after the assaults.
They often try to position themselves in places of influence and trust.
I imagine faith leader in a smaller community is a role that usually does carry a lot of trust, but might have lower barriers to entry and less scrutiny than say, schoolteachers or other perceived “trustworthy” roles in society.
Roles that parents say kids should respect and listen to, that sorta thing.
Pedophilia is, at its core, about the abuse of power dynamics. It manifests sexually because the taboo nature in which our society regards sex provides specific types of vulnerabilities in that power dynamic, particularly in the sexually immature.