Man suspected of years of child sexual abuse was eyed in 2002 Costa Mesa case, police say

A man suspected of sexually abusing multiple children for years in Orange County was a suspect in a 2002 case in Costa Mesa, according to authorities.

Javier Ortiz Pichardo was arrested Thursday and booked into Orange County Jail on suspicion of child abuse, according to the Santa Ana Police Department. His bail was set at $1 million.

Pichardo, 45, is alleged to have molested a 7-year-old in 1999 in the bathroom of a Santa Ana restaurant where Pichardo was a cook and the child was dining with family members. Pichardo then befriended the family and offered them food for free, according to detectives.

At some point, Pichardo was allowed to pick up the child from school, police said, and the abuse continued for seven years until the family lost contact with the man.

Police said they started looking into the case when the victim, now 26, saw Pichardo at a McDonald’s, took down his license plate number and called authorities.

Pichardo also is suspected of molesting a family member for nearly a decade, according to investigators.

Detectives learned he had been a suspect in a 2002 child annoyance case in Costa Mesa and a 2012 child molestation incident in Santa Ana.

“Neither case could be proven, so Pichardo was never arrested in these cases,” Santa Ana police said in a statement.

Police say Pichardo confessed to molesting the family member and the now-26-year-old. Authorities are revisiting the 2002 and 2012 cases.

Anyone with information about any of the cases can contact Det. Jessica Guidry at (714) 245-8530 or jguidry@santa-ana.org, or Orange County Crime Stoppers at (855) TIP-OCCS.