A New Jersey man was ordered Jan. 24 to stand trial for the 1995 sexual assault of a 12-year-old Ocean Beach girl in her home, thanks to what appears to be a DNA match.
The victim, who is now 24, testified last week about the June 21, 1995 incident in which a burglar blindfolded her and carried her to a bedroom where she was sexually assaulted. DNA evidence obtained from the assault was preserved by investigators and matched in 2006.
James de Santo, 35, was ordered by San Diego Superior Court Judge Bernard Revak to stand trial on four counts of committing a lewd act on a child under 14 and aggravated sexual assault. The preliminary hearing took 1 1/2 days to conclude. If convicted on all counts, de Santo could face life in prison, said Deputy District Attorney Mark Skeels.
De Santo would have been 24 at the time of the alleged assault. De Santo’s DNA was in the system because he was convicted of narcotics violations, and convicts are required to give DNA samples. When the match was made in October 2006, de Santo was found to be living in New Jersey. He was located in 2007 in a community also called Ocean Beach. He was arrested June 27 and extradited for trial.
The victim testified she was alone in her Narragansett Street home around 2:57 p.m. when a man apparently entered through an unlocked back door. She said she was reading a magazine and suddenly saw him appear in a mirror.
“This person put his hand over my mouth. He picked me up and carried me through the kitchen and into my mother’s bedroom,” said the woman, whose name is being withheld for privacy reasons. “A white blindfold was placed over my eyes.
“He removed my denim shorts and underwear,” said the woman, who at the time had just finished the 6th grade at Ocean Beach Elementary School.
The victim said the burglar digitally penetrated her and she remembered feeling pain.
“He said not to tell anyone. He said count to 100 before I left the room,” she said.
The woman said the phone rang and the caller was a friend, but she told the court she was too upset to talk at the time. Later, her mother picked her up to go to a weekly piano lesson but the witness said she didn’t immediately tell her mother what happened.
She said that when she did tell her mother on the way to the lesson, her mother became upset and called her father and San Diego police. The witness said she was taken to Children’s Hospital, where she was treated and evidence was collected. Swabs were taken of the molester’s semen and saved in refrigerated containers.
De Santo will return to court Feb. 14 and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He remains in the Vista Detention Facility in lieu of $3 million bail.