SIMI VALLEY : Man Gets 20 Years for Child Sex Abuse

A Superior Court judge Friday sentenced a Simi Valley man to 20 years in state prison for repeatedly molesting a young girl over a six-year span.

Marco Antonio Quezada lowered his head in apparent dejection as Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. chastised him as selfish during the sentencing hearing.

Campbell denied a defense request to place Quezada, 32, on probation so that he could help support the family of the victim, now 12 years old.

“He could make more money than Michael Jackson, and he wouldn’t be able to compensate them,” Campbell said. “Some cases you go to prison for what you do, no matter how sorry you are. And this is clearly one of those cases.”

Quezada pleaded guilty in May to 23 counts of child molestation during a preliminary hearing after his victim broke down in tears while testifying against him. Campbell said he might have sentenced the man to a longer prison term if he had not spared the girl from testifying further with his guilty plea.

Quezada was charged in April with 49 molestation counts in connection with the assaults on the girl over a six-year period ending in May, 1992, authorities said. The incidents included fondling, masturbation and oral copulation, starting when the girl was in the third grade.

“I don’t know how he got to be who he is, but he basically cares only about himself,” Campbell said.

Several family members of the victim implored Campbell to impose a long sentence on Quezada, saying the girl’s healing process could not begin until the defendant goes to prison.

“I’m not here with hate in my heart,” one uncle said. “I just want justice served.”

Defense attorney Joseph O’Neill said alcohol was partially to blame for Quezada’s behavior. He asked for a one-year jail term for the defendant, who would then serve five years probation.

“And if he has one drink, he puts himself in prison,” O’Neill said. “If he has contact with the victim, he puts himself in prison.”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Dee Corona gave the judge a graphic account of the attacks on the girl and asked that Quezada be sentenced to 69 years in prison.

“He told her he would beat the hell out of her if she didn’t cooperate,” Corona said. Once, she said, Quezada “hit her 40 times with his karate belt” for not cooperating with a sex act.