Santa Barbara – In what may register significantly on this city’s Creepiness Scale, a child molestation investigation involving recently unearthed evidence dating back to 1975 appears to have come to an end with the December 18th arrest of Jose Hurtado, 59, a local resident.
The investigation got rolling with a November 22nd report of a child molestation emanating from a residence on Santa Barbara’s Eastside, pursuant to which responding Santa Barbara Police Department officers made contact with a teenage female. The teen informed officers that she had been subjected to repeated sexual contact at the hands of Hurtado since the age of ten when she and her parents cohabited with him at a Cook Avenue residence.
According to SBPD Public Information Officer Sgt. Riley Harwood, just two days later investigators contacted two additional victims reported to them, one of whom alleged that she had been in sexual situations with Hurtado since she was the age of 14, at the same Cook Avenue residence shared by him and her family. The third victim contacted by detectives recounted that Hurtado had repeatedly had sex with her in 1975, when she was 14 years old.
At that point, Harwood reported to the media, “Crimes Against Persons Detective Brian Larson obtained a $1,000,000 arrest warrants for Hurtado” based upon those similar and conforming allegations. Shortly thereafter, on the morning of December 18th, the warrant was served upon Hurtado at his residence. “When interviewed, Hurtado admitted to committing several acts of sexual abuse against the victims,” Harwood said.
Hurtado was booked into Santa Barbara County Jail on charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child, sexual abuse of a child, kidnap to commit rape, false imprisonment, and assault with the intent to commit certain felonies. He is currently held in custody on $1,000,000 bail with a prospective social lifestyle that can only be imagined.
Photo: Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
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