Photo: Julio Alberto Anaya
Ventura County – 47-year-old Julio Alberto Anaya, at one time a resident of Thousand Oaks who had jumped bail after posting a $250,000 bond pursuant to multiple sex offense charges, has learned the hard way that the justice system doesn’t take kindly to an accused’s failure to appear for court dates.
Anaya’s problems began, according to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Dan Hawes, more than twenty years ago. It was December of 1999 when Anaya was arrested following a long investigation that ended with him being charged with 15 felony counts of Lewd Acts Upon a Child Under the Age of 14.
He appeared at his first court hearing on those charges, but after posting bail and being released from custody pending a subsequent court appearance, he disappeared.
It wasn’t until May, 2018, that detectives attached to the Thousand Oaks Investigations Major Crimes Sexual Assault Unit learned Anaya had fled the country in April of 2000 and returned to his native country of El Salvador.
Apparently thinking that the intervening decades had worked in his favor, Anaya had returned to the U.S. “and was now living in Maryland” under a fictitious ID .
Over the past twenty years computerized database technology has improved to the degree that VCSD detectives learned of the possible whereabouts of their suspect and tracked him down to Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
That county’s Fugitive Apprehension Team then staked out Anaya’s suspected residence, positively identified him, and arrested him on the long-standing Ventura County arrest warrant.
He was then transported back to Ventura County, where he faced the court where he had jumped bail so long ago. After pleading guilty to six of the 15 counts pending against him, on January 9th he was sentenced to 24 years in State Prison with an order to pay restitution “of more than $300,000,” indicating that the pursuit and capture of him accumulated some significant law enforcement costs. He remains in custody, and will likely do so until the year 2044.
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
