Man who impregnated 11-year-old girl gets 61 years in prison

An Orange County man was sentenced Friday to 61 years in state prison for sexually assaulting a female relative over a nine-year period, including impregnating her when she was 11, prosecutors said.

Mariano Antonio Castro, 58, was found guilty in February of two felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14, three felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 and one felony count of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, according to a statement for the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors said Castro, a Santa Ana resident , sexually assaulted the girl on a regular basis from 2000 to 2008, starting when the girl was 8.

When she was 11, she became pregnant by him, prosecutors said, and she gave birth to the baby when she was 12.

Prosecutors said the assaults were never previously been reported to law enforcement.

But, in 2011, when she began attending a new church, prosecutors said she told her pastor about the abuse. The pastor encouraged her to report the allegations to the police, which she did.

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