A California man was sentenced Friday to seven years in prison for abusing foster children he'd been assigned to care for in his home, including some who'd been previously tortured by their parents. Marcelino Olguin, 65, was handcuffed and led away by sheriff's deputies in a courtroom in Riverside after a brief sentencing hearing, per the AP. Olguin previously pleaded guilty to lewd acts on a child, false imprisonment, and injuring a child, while his wife, Rosa, and adult daughter, Lennys, pleaded guilty to child cruelty. The women were each sentenced to four years of formal probation. Attorneys for the Olguins said the plea arrangement allowed for the women to be spared prison time. The Olguin family was tasked with caring for the children after they were rescued from horribly abusive conditions in their parents' home in the Southern California community of Perris.
Their parents, David and Louise Turpin, pleaded guilty in 2019 to torture and years of abuse that included shackling some of their 13 children and starving them and providing only a minimal education. The Turpin parents were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. On Friday, a victim's advocate read to the court a statement prepared by one of the Turpin children who'd stayed in the Olguins' home. "All I wanted was to finally have a loving family and to recover from my trauma, but unfortunately I did not receive that," the statement said. The victim, who wasn't named, is still recovering and learning to trust, but they forgive the family in an act of faith, the statement said. A report found the social services system failed the Turpin kids, who ranged in age from 2 to 29 when rescued by authorities from their parents' home after their 17-year-old sister escaped and called 911.
Six of the children were eventually placed with the Olguins. Attorneys representing some of the children filed a civil suit against Riverside County, alleging the Olguins abused minors in their care. The couple hit the children in the face with sandals, pulled their hair, forced them to eat their own vomit, and made them sit in a circle and recount the trauma they'd experienced in their parents' home, the attorneys wrote in the 2022 suit. The suit also accused Marcelino Olguin of sexual abuse. "These children were placed in a position of vulnerability after surviving intense trauma, only to be further exploited by someone who was entrusted with their care," said Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin. "My client saved his family," Paul Grech, Marcelino Olguin's lawyer, said after the hearing, apparently referring to the plea deal that spared Olguin's wife and daughter from prison.
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