A South Bay man was released from jail after serving more than a year after he pleaded guilty to false imprisonment of a 13-year-old girl and three separate sexual battery incidents in which he fondled women after they hugged him in a wheelchair.
Deputy District Attorney Meredith Pro said Jose Alfredo Plascencia, 51, will remain on house arrest between 3-6 months with a monitoring device after he was released Jan. 16 from jail. Plascencia was given a 1-year term, but had already served 461 days.
Chula Vista Superior Court Judge Francis Devaney suspended a 4-year, six month prison sentence and warned Plascencia that he will be sent to prison if he violates terms of four years probation.
Plascencia was ordered to register as a sex offender and is barred from going to Mexico after his house arrest ends. He is under a 10-year protective order barring him from contacting the girl and four women in the case.
Plascencia posed as someone who had a stroke and used a wheelchair. He asked women to hug him because a doctor had “prescribed” him to receive 200 hugs. When he was hugged, he would then fondle them inappropriately over their clothing and then run away, leaving the wheelchair behind.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of misdemeanor sexual battery involving the wheelchair in Chula Vista stores or parking lots.
The most serious incident occurred May 29, 2018, when a 13-year-old girl was walking home from school in the 700 block of Picador Boulevard in Otay Mesa. Plascencia drove up in a black SUV and told her he had been in an accident. He then asked her if she needed a ride.
Plascencia grabbed her left wrist and tried to pull her into the vehicle, but she ran off. She called police. Physical evidence against him includes a swab by an evidence technician from her wrist where he had grabbed her.
One victim was in court, but did not wish to say anything. Twelve members of Plascencia’s family were also in the audience, said his attorney and he will be staying with family under house arrest.
An 84-year-old woman testified at a preliminary hearing that Plascencia asked her for a hug in a wheelchair at Walmart on March 29. She testified she felt sorry for him and hugged him, but he then fondled her.
A 29-year-old woman testified about encountering Plascencia in a wheelchair in a parking lot of Walgreens in the South Bay on April 6. He asked for hugs, but when she hugged him, he fondled her and her teen-age daughter.
“I don’t (approve) of you turning your disability to take advantage of people. That’s just wrong,” the woman recalled telling Plascencia.
“You’re out here getting free feels and hugs from people and you saying you had a stroke.
You’re just nasty, nasty!” the woman testified she told Plascencia at the time.
When he was arrested on Dennery Road on May 31, Plascencia lived in San Ysidro, but he has previously lived in Chula Vista and National City. Attempted kidnapping and other related charges were dismissed. His sentence will be reviewed on April 19.
