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Obdulio Aparicio (Monterey County Sheriff’s Office)
A 38-year-old man in California will spend several years behind bars for selling a 14-year-old family member to another man for $12,000, knowing that the other man intended to use the teen for sex.
Monterey County Superior Court Judge Andrew Liu on Tuesday ordered Obdulio Aparicio to serve a sentence of five years in a state correctional facility for the heinous crime, authorities announced.
The sentence was handed down after Aparicio pleaded guilty to two felonies and a misdemeanor.
“[H]e was convicted of one count of human trafficking of a minor for commercial sex purposes, a felony offense, one count of child abuse, and one count of misdemeanor domestic violence,” the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. The DA’s office also noted that it was Aparicio’s “first convictions of any kind.”
In addition to his time in prison, Aparicio will be required to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life.
According to a previous news release from the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, officials at North Monterey County School District on April 28, 2023, contacted deputies assigned to the Patrol Division and reported possible child sexual abuse taking place at a home in the 11000 block of Merritt Street in Castroville, California.
Detectives from the Investigations Division responded to the scene and assumed control of the investigation into the alleged sexual abuse of a minor while the Patrol Division investigated allegations of corporal injury to a spouse.
Shortly after arriving at the home, authorities took Aparicio into custody on a charge of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse and causing great bodily harm to a minor.
As detectives continued pursuing the case, additional allegations developed which indicated that Aparicio “had sold a minor confidential victim to a man,” the sheriff’s office said. That man was identified as Javier Saavedra.
Javier Saavedra (Monterey County Sheriff’s Office)
Investigators were able to track Saavedra and the minor victim — who is referred to in court documents as “Jane Doe” — back to a residence in the 300 block of Iris Drive in Salinas, California, where he was taken into custody and charged with a slew of felonies.
According to the DA’s office, investigators were then able to confirm that Aparicio had “negotiated the sale of Jane Doe for $12,000” to Saavedra. Authorities said that the child was related to Aparicio, but they did not release any additional details in order to protect her identity.
Saavadra in October 2023 was convicted on one count of statutory rape of a child and oral copulation of a person under 18 years of age. He was subsequently sentenced to nine months in prison, three years of felony probation, and was ordered to attend a program for sex offenders.
“It was determined that Saavadra purchased the victim for $12,000 and that’s just tragic — it’s despicable, to be honest. It’s just incomprehensible. You can’t even put words to it,” a Monterey County Undersheriff Keith Boyd told Salinas ABC and NBC affiliate KSBW. “The fact that someone thought another human being was worth only money, that is just unfathomable.”
Authorities said that Aparicio had been looking to get more money for the child before agreeing to the $12,000.
