San Juan Man Guilty of Killing 2-Year-Old Boy

A San Juan Capistrano man was convicted Tuesday of murdering his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son as well as rape and committing a lewd act.

Leopoldo Ponce, 27, faces a sentence of life in prison without parole Jan. 15 when he appears again before Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel.

Mauro Colon died in May 1995 at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo. The boy had no heartbeat and was not breathing when he was brought to the hospital, police said.

Ponce had been caring for the child while his mother was making arrangements for his baptism, according to previous reports. Ponce had lived with the child’s mother for four months, police said.

The woman told police that Ponce had beaten her son and given him black eyes, but she did not believe he would hit the child hard enough to cause death.

During a preliminary hearing, a defense attorney said that Mauro choked on food, and that Ponce and neighbors tried to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, to no avail.

Ponce denied molesting the boy.