Hemet man convicted of repeatedly raping girl whose case cost county millions

A Hemet man was convicted today of sexually assaulting a young girl dozens of times over a three-year period, during which she asked for help from authorities but didn’t get it, culminating in the victim becoming pregnant and suing a Riverside County agency.

A Riverside jury deliberated less than three hours before finding 30-year-old Deon Austin Welch guilty of 16 counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child with a sentence-enhancing great bodily injury allegation.

Welch is facing 230 years to life in state prison when he’s sentenced by Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz on Aug. 9 at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

The defendant is being held without bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside.

The defense rested Monday morning, after which closing arguments were made, and jurors were sent behind closed doors to weigh evidence from the two-week trial.

According to the prosecution, Welch preyed upon the girl beginning in 2014 when she was 11 years old. The assaults continued, unabated, until the last half of 2016, Deputy District Attorney Sean Oswill wrote in a trial brief.

Welch lived with the child’s mother who also had two young sons, and he began groping the girl when her mother was out of the apartment or asleep, Oswill said. The molestation escalated to forced
rape and sodomy, according to the prosecutor.

He said that in March 2014, the child revealed that Welch had been assaulting her, leading to an investigation and interview with a county forensic examiner, who was informed by the child that she had been “raped multiple times by the defendant,” according to the brief.

However, a follow-up medical exam was cut short when the child’s mother interfered with the process, and nothing conclusive could be determined, court papers state.

When the child’s mother told Hemet police that Welch was no longer in the household and had relocated south of the border, the criminal investigation was shelved, Oswill said.

In October 2014, a Department of Public Social Services case worker interviewed the victim, who told the agent that the defendant had returned to the apartment, at which point the agent met with Welch and the child’s mother, without notifying Hemet police, according to Oswill.

“DPSS asked the defendant to sign off on a `safety plan’ they drafted, requesting he assist in supervision of the children while the mother stabilized on her medication,” according to the brief. “The only option left for the victim was to learn to accept the situation and survive. There was no way out and no place to run.”

Oswill said case workers continued to visit the apartment over the next two years, and during that time, the child denied she was being sexually abused. But in June 2016, the now-13-year-old girl was three months pregnant.

The child’s mother took the child to a pediatric medical clinic and insisted that her daughter “was not sexually active, but also wanted her placed on birth control,” according to the brief.

When the child’s asked clinical staff whether they could perform an abortion on the child, police were notified, Oswill said.

During a September 2016 interview with a Hemet police investigator, the child “disclosed being raped at least 90 times by the defendant,” the prosecutor wrote.

On Nov. 4, 2016, the 13-year-old gave birth, and the baby’s DNA was tested, resulting in confirmation that Welch was the father, according to Oswill.

The child’s mother later admitted to police that her daughter may have attempted to tell her that Welch was sexually assaulting her, but she either couldn’t recall or tried to “block it out,” according to a tape played in court by the prosecution. The child’s mother pleaded guilty in June 2018 to child abuse, perjury and accessory to a felony. She was sentenced to a year in jail and four years probation.

Welch was arrested in March 2017.

The child was appointed a guardian, who initiated a lawsuit against DPSS and the county on her behalf. That civil action led to a $10 million settlement for the victim last summer.

The case attracted extensive public attention, pointing to significant failings by the county’s child welfare apparatus. DPSS Director Susan von Zabern resigned in September, and county CEO George Johnson ordered a comprehensive review of practices and procedures within the agency, which had come under scrutiny previously for other well-publicized incidents.