Prosecutors barred from attending serial child rapist’s parole hearing under Gascón reforms
LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles deputy district attorneys who successfully prosecuted the case against a pedophile who raped and sexually assaulted a brother and sister when they were children will be barred from attending the man’s upcoming parole hearing as part of new District Attorney George Gascón’s reforms, and the mother of the victims is outraged.
Ruben Beltran, a convicted pedophile, has been imprisoned since May 2004, serving a sentence of 15 to life after he was convicted of sexual assault of a child with intent to commit sodomy by force or fear.
In the early 2000s, Beltran raped and assaulted a young girl when she was six, and a young boy when he was eight. Beltran was a friend of the family, and took advantage of their trust.
The victims, now successful adults, both spoke with FOX 11 Wednesday night. Their identities will not be revealed.
"God, I was so young," the sister said. "I was probably five or six, my parents had just been divorced when I was three or four, and [Beltran] moved in to 'help repair the home,' and so quickly after that, he just changed and turned into a manipulative monster."
"He raped me," the brother said. "The really hard part about it was I was a little boy, I didn’t have the words. The thing that’s so scary about him is he identifies the weak one he can hurt."
The victims’ mother, Constance, describes Beltran as a monster.
"The perpetrator is a serial rapist, child rapist, he doesn’t have any preference for sex, age, race, he is a dangerous person," she said.
Constance tells FOX 11 she was stunned when she recently received a letter from the state notifying her that Beltran would have his first parole hearing on March 11.
The shock was made even worse when the family learned that under D.A George Gascón’s reforms, their prosecutor won’t be allowed to attend Beltran’s parole hearing, and the family will be left to argue against his release on their own.
"Somehow the responsibility is in our court to protect society, and that’s simply not how it’s supposed to work," the brother said.
"There’s just every element of protection for him, this violent monster criminal, and very little protection for us," the sister said.
"I do not feel prepared, we are not attorneys," Constance said. "We’re just a family, now we have to take on the role of law enforcement and take on the burden of trying to defend the community rather than the people who should be defending the community."
Three weeks ago, Constance sent Gascón a letter, pleading with him to reconsider his blanket policy, and asking him to consider allowing their prosecutor to attend Beltran’s hearing, but she never heard back.
"I feel like he should be representing us, and I don’t understand his thinking," she said.
A representative for Gascón told FOX 11 they have no comment in response to this report.
As for the family, they said they feel abandoned by the DA’s office, and they’re horrified at the thought of Beltran’s potential release as a 46-year-old ex-marine.
"It doesn’t sound like he’s the type of man who would be paroled, but he’s an actor, and he’s a sociopath," the sister said.
"I was so scared that it took me years to tell the truth about what happened to me," the brother said. "It was just fear, he’s genuinely the kind of person you should be really scared of."
The family says they reached out to all of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors for help, but only Kathryn Barger and Janice Hahn's staff responded.
Hahn’s staff said in an email they will bring the family's concerns to Gascón’s office.
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