A jury convicted Charles Robert Jacques, 63, of 15 felony sex counts involving two girls in his care, while acquitting him of three charges concerning a third accuser, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing court records. Jacques is scheduled for sentencing Dec. 11; the outcome has not yet been determined.
The convictions concern assaults police said occurred from May 2019 to 2020. Prosecutor Thomas Farnell told the court that one girl was 13 when she came to stay with Jacques and that he spent about a year grooming her before the abuse began, according to the Times. The paper also reported that two accusers are sisters who were placed in Jacques’ home after the biological father of one was convicted of sexually assaulting them.
What the foster-care measures do—and do not—show
California’s foster-care maltreatment indicator is a rate of victimization per 100,000 days in care, as defined by the California Child Welfare Indicators Project, a project of UC Berkeley and the state Department of Social Services. It is a system-level measure, not evidence about Jacques’ case. State directives identify a county child welfare agency or probation department as the authority that approves Resource Families; they do not establish which procedures, if any, were followed in this case, according to the California Department of Social Services.
A separate Orange County case offers a limited comparison involving abuse by a caregiver: KTLA reported on Oct. 3, 2023, that a nanny was convicted of molesting 16 boys and showing pornography to another boy in his care. The defendant, victims and circumstances differed from the Huntington Beach case; the comparison does not establish a broader trend.
Earlier allegations and the defense
The jury acquitted Jacques of charges brought by a third accuser, who described assaults between 2012 and 2016. The Times reported that Farnell also said another accuser was younger than 14 when Jacques began touching her inappropriately, and that she told investigators she had witnessed him molest another alleged victim. The paper reported that Jacques threatened to kill one accuser if she disclosed the abuse.
Jacques, a former substitute teacher for the Huntington City School District, was arrested in April 2021. Investigators had opened an investigation the previous month, CBS News Los Angeles reported. At trial, Farnell said investigators later found online searches for young girls in bikinis on Jacques’ seized cellphone. At the time of the arrest, police had identified additional underage victims, FOX 11 Los Angeles reported.
Defense attorney Samuel Anthony Ziselman argued that the case lacked direct physical evidence and did not prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He told jurors that Jacques and his wife had been foster parents together for about 20 years and that information about children’s needs was sometimes misrepresented or withheld from them, according to the Times.
