Man charged in connection to incident at Whole Foods avoids house arrest, monitoring
The L.A. County District Attorney’s Office sought house arrest and electronic monitoring for the suspect in a sexual assault at a Valencia grocery store, but both were denied Monday.
An attorney for Jared Paul Estrada, 28, of Valencia, filed a plea of not guilty on his client’s behalf in Department 3, according to the Santa Clarita Courthouse records available online.
Estrada stands charged with two counts of exposing his private parts in public and two counts of touching a person intimately against their will for sexual arousal, which are both misdemeanor offenses. He did not appear in court Monday.
The DA’s Office had sought house arrest for Estrada while pending trial, as he remains free on $100,000 bail.
Commissioner Wendy Shapero, who presided over the matter, denied Deputy District Attorney Delilah Zied’s request for “home detention and electronic monitoring,” according to the record of the court hearing.
The office sought an order to keep the defendant away from grocery stores, due in part to the random nature of the first accusation and where it occurred, according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke on background as the person was not a part of the case.
As conditions to extend his bail, Shapero ordered Estrada to: stay away from the alleged victim; stay away from Whole Foods; and take two sexual-compulsion classes per week.
A woman accused Estrada in March of following her around the Whole Foods Market in Valencia and placing his genitalia directly on her while she was crouching down and looking at grocery items.
The victim told The Signal she was in shock at first, and didn’t fully believe what was happening until she saw store security footage that explained what she had felt against her ear — the private parts of a man she later identified as Estrada.
“The suspect followed her throughout various aisles of the store. While the victim was crouching down in an aisle deciding which product to buy, the suspect stood over her at proximity with his exposed penis out of his pants,” according to the detective’s report. “The suspect had his cell phone in one hand and he appeared to be recording himself placing his penis near the victim’s face as seen on store surveillance footage and per the victim’s statement.”
The station released the footage to the public, and a number of residents came forward to identify the man, according to the affidavit requesting a search warrant.
Station detectives used security footage and witness accounts to follow Estrada’s actions that evening, according to their request to an L.A. County Superior Court judge for an arrest warrant.
Estrada’s next appearance is set for a June 8 pretrial conference in Santa Clarita.
