Trial begins for man accused of sexually assaulting 2 girls in Costa Mesa

A 47-year-old man repeatedly sexually assaulted one girl for years and molested her sister multiple times while living with their family in Costa Mesa, a prosecutor told jurors Monday while the defendant’s attorney called into question the credibility of his client’s accusers.

Nelson Anibal Saavedra is charged with a dozen felony counts of sexual assaults of the two girls. He is accused of molesting the girls from 2015 through 2022. His trial got underway this week at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.

The oldest girl has alleged she was assaulted starting when she was 6 until she was 12 years old when a classmate “nearly dragged” her to their principal’s office to report the alleged abuse, Deputy Dist. Atty. Alyssa
Marie Staudinger said.

The victim’s sister said she was first assaulted once in second grade when she 7 or 8, Staudinger said.

Their mother was a young mom, who gave birth to one daughter when she was 17 and the other when she was 19, the prosecutor said. Their biological father was “not in the picture” and was living in Mexico, Staudinger said.

The victims’ mother began dating the defendant when she was 23 while he lived in the Los Angeles area and she lived in Costa Mesa with other relatives, Staudinger said.

One of the girls said she was in bed sleeping when the defendant first sexually assaulted her and told her not to tell anyone, Staudinger said.

“She doesn’t tell for years,” the prosecutor said. “She doesn’t tell her mom or her sister.”

Saavedra told her sister when she was in second grade to “turn around,” so she excitedly thought she was about to get a gift, Staudinger said. When it became apparent she was being assaulted, she said she had to go
to the bathroom and the defendant let her go, Staudinger alleged.

The girl did not tell anyone right away, but a couple of days later confided in her sister, who was “very protective” of her younger sibling, Staudinger said.

The older girl “decided it was time to tell their mother,” Staudinger said.

Their mother, however, did not go to police, but, instead, “interrogated” her daughters and then drove to Los Angeles to confront the defendant, Staudinger said.

The girls’ mother, on the way home, told her daughters the defendant was “sorry,” and promised he wouldn’t “do it again,” the prosecutor said.

“The abuse stopped for a year,” Staudinger said.

Saavedra resumed molesting the older sister and then molested the other girl while they lived in Costa Mesa, Staudinger said.

“The typical pattern it falls into is when they went to sleep,” the prosecutor said.

As the older girl resisted him, he would “use more physical force on her” as she got older, Staudinger said.

When the older girl was in seventh grade, she told an eighth-grade boy in her drama class about the abuse in December 2021, Staudinger said.

Over the next four to five months, her classmate prodded her to tell someone, but she was discouraged and felt no one would believe her, Staudinger said.

At some point, the boy “nearly dragged her to the principal’s office,” to report the allegations, Staudinger said.

When police went to question Saavedra at his job at a fast food restaurant in Newport Beach, he told them the older girl was “sexually aggressive” and came on to him, but he pushed her away, Staudinger said. He
also told investigators he hugged the sister once while aroused, Staudinger said.

Bobby Shui of the Orange County public defender’s office said his client and the mother of the girls worked together at the fast food restaurant.

The mother was his boss, he added.

The two lived in a crowded house and worked the same shift so there were no opportunities to commit the attacks, Shui said.

The defense attorney said the older accuser is “non-binary” and uses the pronouns “they” and “them.” She is into anime and her theater class, and the other girl “admits she has anger issues,” Shui said.

The older accuser, who is now 15, bonded with her classmate over anime and Shui added that he “watches a lot of crime shows” on TV.

The older victim’s classmate and her mother encouraged her to get a rape kit analysis at a hospital, but she refused, Shui said.

“There’s no forensics,”Shui said.

The case relies on “unreliable witness testimony,” Shui said. “At the end of this case, nothing’s going to add up.”