A Los Angeles man has been charged with multiple felonies for the sexual assaults of three young girls in public places in Irvine, including an assault of a 9-year-old in a library where the man forced the girl to read cue cards and film him while he masturbated.
Christopher Eduard, 53, has been accused in a litany of sexual assault and child pornography charges, including two counts of false imprisonment, two felony counts of inappropriate acts with a minor, one felony count of forcible lewd act on a child, and one felony count of possession of child pornography.
Eduard has also been charged with one misdemeanor count of sexual exploitation of a child, one misdemeanor count of using a minor in pornography production, and one misdemeanor count of indecent exposure.
On March 21, Eduard asked a 9-year-old looking at children’s books in the Heritage Park Regional Library to film him while instructing her to read sexually explicit things off of cue cards while he exposed his genitals and masturbated in front of her, police said.
He was arrested and released on bail. Irvine police detectives then linked him to two other unsolved child molestation crimes from 2021, at two different Target stores in Irvine, according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
He was re-arrested and is being held without bail. He returns to court on April 10.
Eduard faces up to 25 years in state prison and three years in the Orange County Jail.
“High-risk sex offenders are the most dangerous kind of criminal and the most likely to re-offend. The kind of person who would prey on innocent children looking at library books or toys and sexually assault them should not be allowed to be out on bail to be able to prey on more children,” District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement.
Read the full article here
