A Riverside County judge has ordered a 31-year-old registered sex offender to stand trial on charges that he molested a girl outside a Temecula high school and groped a woman at a nearby shopping center within the same afternoon, less than six months after he was released from state prison on parole. Jacob Brian Paulsen, of Perris, is being held on $1 million bail after a preliminary hearing concluded Thursday.
Superior Court Judge John Molloy found sufficient evidence to bind Paulsen over for trial on charges of lewd acts on a minor, sexual battery, child endangerment, attempted lewd acts on a minor, annoying an underage victim, and parole violations, according to court records cited by MyNewsLA.com. His post-preliminary hearing arraignment is scheduled for September 16, 2026, at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta.
Deputies were first alerted on September 19, 2025 to an alleged sexual assault involving a girl in the 40000 block of Winchester Road, near Chaparral High School, according to Sgt. Miguel Santos. Investigators say Paulsen also had inappropriate physical contact with a woman at a shopping mall in the 20000 block of Ynez Road near County Center Drive, a retail corridor less than two miles from the high school campus.
A Pattern That Stretches Back Years
Paulsen was taken into custody hours later without incident following the Riverside County Sheriff's Department investigation, and the alleged assaults caused no injuries. He had been released from state prison in spring 2025 after serving three years, according to the California Department of Justice, with prior convictions for assault with intent to commit a sexual offense, sexual battery, and contacting a minor to commit a sexual offense.
Those convictions trace back to a March 2021 incident, first reported by Patch, when Paulsen entered a residential backyard naked and sexually assaulted two sunbathing women on Zinfandel Avenue while free on $35,000 bail in an earlier sex crimes case involving a minor. At the time, he was also serving three years of probation stemming from a 2018 misdemeanor battery conviction. In April 2022, Paulsen pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit rape, sexual battery, and contacting a minor to commit a felony, and Judge Paul Dickerson sentenced him to four years in state prison that June, with prosecutors dismissing three related felony charges as part of the plea deal, per Patch's later reporting.
Registry Status and Bail Enhancement
After the September 2025 arrest, deputies confirmed Paulsen was an active sex registrant on parole and obtained a bail enhancement, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Office. He was initially booked on suspicion of offenses including oral copulation of a minor, indecent exposure, and parole violations while the county's District Attorney's Office reviewed the felony filing, MyNewsLA.com reported at the time. Paulsen formally pleaded not guilty to all felony charges and parole violation allegations during his initial court appearance, the outlet's earlier coverage noted.
Paulsen's case sits within a broader statewide framework: under California Senate Bill 384, implemented in 2021, the state moved from a lifetime sex offender registration model to a three-tier system. Felony convictions such as lewd acts on a minor under 14 fall into Tier Two, which carries a mandatory 20-year registration period, according to the Riverside County District Attorney's Office. As of August 2026, California's Megan's Law database tracks more than 61,000 registered sex offenders statewide, including over 55,000 registrants whose full home addresses are publicly disclosed, per the California Department of Justice.
Not the First Case Near a Temecula Campus
The Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta, where Paulsen's proceedings are being handled, serves as the primary courthouse for felony prosecutions across Temecula, Murrieta, and surrounding southwest Riverside County communities. Chaparral High School, near the site of the alleged assault, enrolls more than 3,000 students and sits along a commercial corridor near the Promenade Temecula shopping area, a stretch of Winchester and Margarita roads dense with retail development.
This is not the first time Hoodline has reported a registrant near a Temecula campus, after another registered sex offender was arrested last year for trespassing on a different school campus. It remains unclear what level of parole monitoring Paulsen was under at the time of the alleged September 2025 offenses, and law enforcement has not publicly detailed the exact circumstances of the encounter outside Chaparral High School. Paulsen remains held in lieu of $1 million bail ahead of his September arraignment.
