Former MP gets 40 years in prison for serial sexual predator

A former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was sentenced Friday to 40 years in prison for sexually abusing four young girls.

Sean Essex, 53, a deputy for more than 22 years until his arrest in 2022, was sentenced by Judge George G. Lomeli immediately after pleading no contest to repeatedly sexually abusing the girls, whose ages varied from 4 to 13 years old.

The veteran deputy was taken into custody and charged in 2022 after investigators documented repeated sexual abuse of the three young daughters of a woman Essex was dating. Essex was also accused of abusing another girl in 2006. Prosecutors learned of the allegation in 2006 but did not charge him at the time.

“The horrific sexual abuse that Mr. Essex inflicted on these young victims not only violated his oath as a law enforcement officer to protect and serve the community, but also left these children with lifelong trauma “, said Dist. Atty. » declared George Gascón when announcing the conviction. “Children have an inviolable right to safety and protection. Victims have shown immense courage in speaking out about Mr Essex's abuse.

Essex pleaded no contest to three counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and one count of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14. Additionally, he admitted to taking advantage of a position of trust in committing the crime and this victim was particularly vulnerable, according to prosecutors.

By the time he was initially arrested by his own department's Internal Affairs and Special Victims Unit in April 2022, Essex was assigned to the sheriff's training office. Essex was released on bond but was rearrested in August 2022 and has remained behind bars since then, according to jail records.

The initial 33-count indictment filed in 2022 included sexual abuse charges against the sisters and the daughter he molested in 2006, which the prosecutor's office then declined to pursue.

According to Spencer Lucas, an attorney for the sisters and their family, Essex was at one point in a romantic relationship with his victims' mother. According to the indictment, he was living with the girls when he sexually abused two of them.

One of the sisters was younger than 10 at the time, prosecutors said, and the other two were younger than 14. Essex cared for the girls and remained close to them even after they broke up with their mother, according to Lucas.

“He would pick up the girls individually in the Los Angeles County sheriff's patrol vehicle, and he would take the girls and abuse them in the patrol car,” Lucas told the Times after the indictment. Lucas said some of the abuse happened in the sheriff's department parking lot.

On Friday, Lomeli ordered Essex to pay the victims compensation in an amount to be determined by the court.