People v. Sosa CA2/6

FACTS

D. is appellant’s granddaughter. She and her immediate family lived with appellant when D. was in the second, third and fourth grades, and she visited his house frequently when she was five or six years old. The family had various animals at the house. When D. was five or six years old, she would regularly feed the animals with appellant. During those feedings, appellant would pick her up and slowly rub or massage her vagina through her clothes. He did so on multiple occasions. D. became aware that the touchings were more than an accident or incidental when she was sleeping over at a friend’s house and the friend recounted her own experience of being touched inappropriately by someone. The friend did not believe D. would understand how she felt, but D. told her friend that she “‘went through the same thing’” with her grandpa. D., who was 15 or 16 at the time, did not tell her parents because she did not want to start “a family feud” or “have that side of the family disown us.” In April 2012, D.’s father told D. that appellant had sexually abused her cousin, I., and asked if it had also happened to her. D. admitted that it had, prompting the family to contact the police.…