Washington Man To Be Sentenced After Horrifically Abusing Multiple Children

It was 15 years of hell for three children who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their attacker.  Those three children came forward, and were instrumental in putting their abuser behind bars.  Acting U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, Richard Barker, announced earlier today that a guilty verdict was rendered in the emotional trial.

The abuse of the children began in 1999 on the Yakima Nation Reservation by Jose Antonio Saldana.

Saldana had access to the children even though he was not a member of the Yakima Nation tribe himself.  The charges against him were simple, yet set the stage for the story waiting to be told, three counts of Abusive Sexual Contact and of Aggravated Sexual Abuse.

43 year-old Saldana was 18 when he began abusing the three children who were all under the age of 13 at the time.  The children (all of whom testified during the trial) said they were touching them under their clothing, with Saldana attempting to escalate the abuse to another sexual level with one of the victims. The abuse of the three minors continued until January of 2014.

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Saldana's trial began last spring in March.

The court proceedings were presided over by U.S. District Judge Mary K Dimke in Yakima at the William O Douglass Federal Courthouse.  After the verdict was announced, acting U.S. Attorney Richard Barker said:

At the trial in this case, three young victims testified years after the abuse they had suffered and identified Mr. Saldana as their abuser. The jury heard their voices and found Mr. Saldana guilty of the abuse he inflicted for more than two decades.

The case was investigated by the Yakima nation Police and the Seattle Office of the FBI.  Saldana, of Wapato, will be sentenced on June 16th.  He faces thirty years to life in federal prison.