El Paso foster parent charged with sex abuse of 2 children in her care; husband wanted in cases
El Paso Police accuse a couple who run a foster home of sexually abusing two children who were in their care.
Sandra Huerta, a foster parent in El Paso, is charged by El Paso Police with aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child in two separate cases.
Huerta was arrested and booked into the county jail this Friday.
Her husband, Antonio Huerta, has not been arrested and is wanted in connection with the two cases.
Investigators believe there may be more victims who have yet to be identified and encourage anyone with additional information to contact police.
Paul Zimmerman, spokesman with Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, sent ABC-7 the following statement regarding the Huertas.
“Sandra and Antonio Huerta have not been foster parents for many months, since September 2014, when foster children were removed from their home. No children have been placed in the foster home since that time. Sandra and Antonio Huerta were a CPA (private child placing agency) licensed & monitored foster home under Children’s Hope Residential, initially verified in 2000 by DFPS (Department of Family and Protective Services) before getting shut down.”
Zimmerman told ABC-7 the Huertas housed 36 foster children from 2000-Sept. 2014.
Information On First Case
According to the affidavit in which 55-year-old Huerta was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, the victim said he was placed in Huerta’s home as a foster child when he was 11 years old and the alleged offenses occurred between May 2000 and late January 2002, the entire time he was placed in their home.
The victim said that the co-defendant – not named in the affidavit but who also lived at the home – would take him into the room he shared with Huerta where Huerta would be completely naked.
The victim said he was made to watch Huerta and the co-defendant engage in foreplay.
He was allegedly made to have sex with Huerta while the co-defendant allegedly used a finger on the victim.
The affidavit also stated that Huerta performed oral sex on the victim.
The victim also was allegedly made to watch pornography while in their bedroom.
A witness who was present during some of the incidents corroborated the victim’s account of events, according to the affidavit.
Information On Second Case
In the other case, in which Huerta is charged with indecency with a child, a child was 7 years old when she was placed in Huerta’s home as a foster child.
The girl says in the affidavit that the co-defendant would take her into Huerta’s and the co-defendant’s bedroom and made to watch pornographic movies while lying in bed with them.
The victim said Huerta asked her to mimic what she was seeing in the movies and the girl was asked to masturbate.
The victim said in the affidavit that this happened several times and that it progressed to Huerta and the co-defendant making her touch both of them.
It escalated to the co-defendant allegedly penetrating her and that Huerta would watch the co-defendant having sexual intercourse with her.
The victim said the incidents happened the entire time she was placed in the home from late January 2002 to early September 2002.
A witness who was present during some of the incidents corroborated the victim’s account of events, according to the affidavit.
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Although the incidents allegedly happened more than 10 years ago, they were not reported to police until Sept. 2014.
ABC-7 went to the Huerta home in the 1900 block of Seagull in East El Paso on Monday. No one answered the door. Neighbors, who asked to remain anonymous, were shocked at the allegations.
One neighbor said they saw police at the home late last week and someone loading items into a truck from the home on Saturday.
“They hardly ever come out of the house,” one neighbor told ABC-7. “For the past couple of years, they come and go, but we’ve never encountered them at all. (The police) came last week and they asked us if we’ve seen them. But like I said before, we don’t really talk to them.”
ABC-7 spoke with Lisa Saucedo from CASA, Court Appointed Special Advocates for children, about how cases like the Huerta’s can be prevented in the future.
“The more people we have looking out for children, especially children that have been abused, the better off they will be,” Saucedo said. “There’s several laws that are up in the Texas house and I think we should follow that legislation that concerns children. It’s tragic when a situation like this occurs. It’s tragic anytime there’s abuse and neglect.”
State Rep. Joe Moody told ABC-7 Monday he was “appalled” by the allegations. He’s filed a bill designed to close loopholes that make it difficult to track separately reported abuse cases in Texas.
“Situations like this are why I filed House Bill 2652, which is set to be heard in the House Committee on Juvenile Justice and Family Issues this Wednesday,” Moody said in an email. “Advocates around the state have told me about situations where reports of abuse are filed over and over, year after year, only to repeatedly come back inconclusive despite physical evidence of abuse. In other words, countless investigations end when authorities know something happened but not exactly how. Leaving vulnerable children in a home we know is dangerous is unacceptable, and our system should not reward a lack of cooperation by abusers.”
Moody wrote: “House Bill 2652 requires a foster home to develop a corrective action plan after any report of abuse or neglect, even if the report is inconclusive. And if an additional report of abuse or neglect comes within a year of that — again, even if it is inconclusive — authorities must conduct a new study on that foster home to make sure it is safe and meets state standards. Those homes that do not will find themselves without a license. It is time to close the loopholes that put foster children in harm’s way and make good on our promise to protect Texas children who have no one else to speak for them.”
