Recently in Child Abuse Category

Whittier Daily News reports that a Pop Warner football coach from Whittier has been charged with one felony count of oral copulation of a child under 10 and eight felony counts of sexual molestation of a child under 14. The suspect, Paul Ayala, pleaded not guilty to the charges on Tuesday.

All the charges are in connection with two alleged victims, both 10 years-old, who played on a youth football team that Mr. Ayala had coached in 2008 and 2009. Police were informed of Mr. Ayala's alleged behavior after one of the kids told family members about what had happened. The Whittier Police deferred the case the case to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department because of its sensitive nature.

Isabel Garcia, the daughter of Lupe Lopez and Gabriel Garcia, died on May 19, 2008 from malnutrition. She was just two years old.

Now the parents, who reside in Pomona, will be paying the consequences as they were both sentenced to prison last Thursday. They pleaded no contest to child abuse. The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reports that the child had bruises and cuts on her body; as well as injuries to the toes at the time of her death.

A recent case in Los Angeles County sheds light on the safety concerns of social networking, giving parents and teenagers a new reason to be concerned.

A man who pleaded no contest to four counts of child molestation in Pomona Superior Court was sentenced to five years in prison last week, according to San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Walter Loustari, a criminal attorney in Los Angeles County, was convicted last week of possessing child pornography and possessing an assault rifle. Now the criminal attorney faces up to three years and eight months in state prison.

Loustari was arrested without incident at his law office in La Canada on a felony complaint charging him with possessing child pornography and an assault weapon last October. He was charged after a three year investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Glendale Police Department. The 58-year-old defendant entered a no contest plea before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Ryan, before he was convicted of the crimes last Friday.

Here's a sad story that happened earlier today that ends with an arrest.

The 32-year-old man and his 25-year-old wife were driving from Las Vegas to Montebello with their 9-month-old son in the car. The couple got into an argument in Upland, where the man allegedly beat his wife and left her unconscious next to a freeway. He then drove off and allegedly kidnapped their baby.

Juana Perez Valencia, the 19 year old from Orange County who allegedly threw her baby in the dumpster after giving birth, pleaded not guilty yesterday in the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.

A 19 year old Anaheim woman was arrested on Christmas Eve for murder, after police found her baby in a Stanton trash bin.

Last week celebrity dancer Shane Sparks was arrested on multiple felony counts of child molestation (see earlier blog post “Shane Sparks Arrested in North Hollywood”), but the dancer’s Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer says Sparks plans to plead not guilty to all the charges. He is scheduled for arraignment on January 13.

After a six-month old girl in Compton received second degree burns from a floor heater, police arrested the two parents on suspicion of child endangerment Monday night.

Shane Sparks may have all the right moves on the dance floor, but the 40-year-old celebrity will now have to make the right moves in the court room. Let’s just hope he can get a good Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer to represent him.

Sparks was arrested around 8 a.m this morning in North Hollywood on a felony warrant charging him with molestation. KTLA News reports that he has been charged with 8 counts of molestation, including a lewd act upon a child, which is a felony. The alleged crimes occurred between 1994 and 1997, where all charges are focused around one victim’s case. The victim was one of Sparks’ hip-hop dance students at Millennium Studios in North Hollywood.