Turpin siblings case: Foster family admits to child abuse, reaches plea deal
Six Turpin children sue over abuse from foster family
Six of the 13 children victimized in Riverside County's most notorious parental child abuse case filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the county and a Long Beach-based foster care agency for placing them in another allegedly abusive household, where their attorneys say they were subjected to sexual assaults, psychological torment and other offenses.
Are you or someone you know a recent survivor of sexual assault? Help is available. Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) provides a 24/7 national sexual assault hotline, which can be reached at 1-800-656-4673.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A Perris man, his wife and their adult daughter admitted perpetrating sexual, psychological and other abuse against six children placed in their care after being rescued from a home where their natural parents imprisoned them and inflicted trauma that gained international notoriety, prosecutors confirmed Friday.
Marcelino Camacho Olguin, 65, his wife, Rosa Armida Olguin, 60, and their adult daughter, Lennys Giovanna Olguin, 39 reached plea agreements with the Riverside County District Attorney's Office that were disclosed Thursday during a hearing before Superior Court Judge Gail O'Rane.
Under the negotiated terms, Marcelino Olguin admitted seven counts of lewd acts on a minor and one count of false imprisonment, prompting prosecutors to agree to drop four related charges. His wife admitted three counts of child abuse and one count each of witness intimidation, grand theft and false imprisonment. Four counts are slated to be dropped in her case.
The couple's daughter, Lennys Olguin, pleaded guilty to three counts of child abuse and one count each of false imprisonment and witness intimidation. The prosecution indicated three counts would be dismissed under her plea deal.
O'Rane scheduled a sentencing hearing for the trio on Oct. 18 at the Riverside Hall of Justice. The stipulated sentence for Marcelino Olguin is seven years in state prison and lifetime registration as a convicted sex offender, according to the D.A.'s office.
His wife and daughter are each slated to receive sentences of four years' felony probation, as well as three to four months in the sheriff's work release program in lieu of jail. They'll additionally receive so-called "paper commitment" prison terms of four years each, but the imprisonment will be suspended in exchange for their pleas.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: David and Louise Turpin sentenced to life in prison for torture, abuse of 12 of their children
The defendants were charged in November 2021 following a sheriff's investigation that was initiated based on the Turpin children's complaints of repeated abuse in the defendants' foster care home.
The victims, almost all of whom are now emancipated young adults, had been in the hostile environment for over two years, placed with the Olguins after their rescue from an oft-described "house of horrors" maintained by their parents, David Turpin, 61, and Louise Turpin, 54, each of whom was sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison in 2019 after admitting multiple child cruelty counts.
The victims filed civil suits against the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services and private placement agency ChildNet, also known as Foster Family Network, in July 2022 for alleged gross negligence in placing them with the Olguins.
The lawsuits were jointly filed by attorneys Elan Zektser and Roger Booth, who are representing different siblings, and provide details on what transpired in the Olguin home.
According to Zektser's complaint, several of the Turpin girls were objects of lascivious attention from Marcelino Olguin, with him "grabbing and fondling (their) buttocks, legs, breasts" and "kissing them on their mouths and making sexually suggestive comments."
There were instances of the Olguins "pulling their hair, hitting them with a belt and striking their heads," the complaint stated.
The document recited the following other abuse: "making the plaintiffs sit by themselves, sometimes outside, for many hours at a time"; "making plaintiffs sit in a circle and recount, in detail, the horrors that they had experienced while living with their parents"; "verbally abusing plaintiffs, cursing at them, and telling them that they were worthless and should commit suicide"; "forcing them to eat until they began to vomit," then compelling them "to eat their own vomit."
The Olguins further told the children that "nobody would ever love them," Zektser wrote.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: California sisters imprisoned, tortured by parents along with siblings break silence: It was 'hell'
He and Booth declined comment Friday on the outcome of the criminal case so as not to potentially taint their clients' unresolved civil suits.
In the spring of 2021, the plaintiffs were either placed in alternate foster homes or emancipated.
The whistleblower on the Olguins' criminal acts was the same one who escaped her parents' home, by jumping through a window, in January 2018 — now- 22-year-old Jordan Turpin. Her 911 call that she and her 12 siblings were virtually caged in their house on Muir Woods Road led to the brothers and sisters gaining temporary relief — before half of them went to live with the Olguins.
David and Louise Turpin kept some of their children caged or chained most times of the day, forced them to subsist on peanut butter sandwiches and burritos, made them sleep up to 20 hours daily, and allowed them to shower only once a year. There was also physical abuse that resulted in injuries.