REDWOOD CITY — An East Palo Alto man was sentenced to 24 years in prison Tuesday for molesting three children at an unlicensed daycare run by his wife, prosecutors said.
Norberto Renteria Bautista, 72, pleaded no contest in July to four counts of child molestation for sexually abusing the children, who were between the ages of five and 11 at the time, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.
Bautista also pleaded to an additional count of continuous child molestation and admitted to allegations of serious and violent felonies on each count, prosecutors said.
“Whenever we plea bargain cases like this, it means that the victims don’t have to go through the very arduous duty to testify in court in front of a bunch of strangers,” San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe said. “This one accomplishes, I think, both the goal of properly punishing and saving the victim the heartache of having to testify.”
Bautista’s defense attorney Scott Sherman declined to comment.
The sentence was imposed by San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Kevin Dunleavy, who denied Bautista probation, ordered him to register as a sex offender for life and imposed a 10-year no contact order with the victims, prosecutors said.
Wagstaffe added that Bautista will have to serve at least 80% of the sentence in prison because there were multiple victims.
“All three families, all the family members were pleased with the length of the sentence and pleased that it was over and done and their kids didn’t have to testify,” Wagstaffe said.
Bautista’s wife operated an unlicensed childcare facility in their East Palo Alto home, prosecutors said. On Feb. 1, 2022, the father of the first victim went to pick up his 7-year-old daughter and was told by Bautista’s wife to not bring her back to the daycare.
When asked why, Bautista’s wife told the father that she had briefly left the child in the care of Bautista. When she returned, she saw that Bautista had pulled down the child’s pants and underwear and was touching her genitalia, prosecutors said.
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The victim told her father that Bautista had penetrated her with his finger on two occasions, according to prosecutors. Bautista’s wife told police that the girl had previously told her that Bautista had inappropriately touched her, but she did not take any further action because Bautista denied the allegation.
The first victim had been attending the daycare since she was 5-years-old, prosecutors said.
Two additional victims came forward, one who was 5-years-old at the time of the molestations, and one who was between the ages of 7 and 11 years old at the time of the molestations, authorities said.