Man Given 90 Years in Sex Slave Kidnap Case

A San Bernardino man who kidnaped two young sisters from a carnival in Mexico and held them for years as child sex slaves in the United States was sentenced Monday to 90 years in federal prison.

The sentence imposed on Andro Garcia, 46, by U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi in Los Angeles was requested by federal prosecutors so that Garcia cannot be considered for parole until serving at least 30 years in prison.

“Human life is our most treasured natural resource,” Takasugi said. “Society must be protected against Mr. Andro Garcia.”

Prosecution’s Plea

Assistant U.S. Atty. Nancy Wieben Stock asked for the 90-year term instead of a life sentence for Garcia, which would have made him eligible for parole consideration after serving only 10 years.

Marge Garcia, 34, Garcia’s half-sister who had lived with him as his wife and joined in the kidnaping, was sentenced to 20 years for her role in the abductions. Her lawyer, Deputy Federal Public Defender Steve Cochran, argued that his client was also was a victim of Andro. She will be eligible for parole in 10 years.

The sentencings followed a non-jury trial before Takasugi in September during which it was revealed that Garcia had begun sexually abusing his half-sister when she was a teen-ager and had repeatedly committed other sexual offenses.

The Garcias were found guilty of luring Olga and Norma Aguilar away from a neighborhood carnival in Tijuana in 1976, when the sisters were 9 and 10 years old.

They illegally adopted them as their own children, subjecting them to beatings, torture and sexual abuse for years and forcing them into prostitution, Takasugi found.

In 1981, when the two girls were in their late teens, they were able to escape from the Garcias and were reunited with their parents, testimony revealed. Norma Aguilar, 21, is now married and the mother of three children. Olga Aguilar, 20, is also the mother of three.

The still unsolved kidnaping of Laura Bradbury at Joshua Tree National Monument in 1984 touched off a roundup of all known sex offenders in the area and led San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents to the Garcias.

The Aguilar sisters had kept their experiences a secret from authorities until they were approached by law enforcement officers seeking the whereabouts of Andro Garcia in November, 1984, when Garcia was a fugitive in another sexual abuse case and wanted for questioning in the Bradbury investigation.