Alleged serial Coachella Valley sexual predator in court

A 47-year-old Indio man accused of sexually assaulting three women in the Coachella Valley is scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial hearing Friday, months after his trial was delayed to give the defense more time to review new evidence in the case.

Daniel Candelario Delgadillo is charged with two sexual assaults — in 2006 and one in 2014.

His trial was initially set by Judge Otis Sterling in March following a motion by Delgadillo’s defense attorney, Melanie Roe, that went unopposed by Deputy District Attorney Samantha Paixao. The trial was re-set for May 2, but it was again delayed several times through the month of May, until today.

Delgadillo was initially charged a decade ago with the two 2006 rapes, but the charges were dismissed in June 2008. According to the criminal complaint, the attacks occurred about five months apart and a knife was used in one of the assaults.

In the 2014 case, Delgadillo is accused of sexually assaulting a woman, then driving her up a mountainside, where she leapt from Delgadillo’s moving vehicle because she believed he “was taking her up the mountain to kill her,” according to an arrest warrant declaration.

According to the document, Delgadillo initially gave the woman a ride from a Palm Springs bus stop to a residence in either Palm Desert or Rancho Mirage, then sexually assaulted, punched and choked her before the drive up themountain. Though a suspect description was provided to investigators, the house where the alleged assault occurred could not be located at the time, the declaration states.

For unknown reasons, the victim’s sexual assault kit was also not analyzed for more than a year after the alleged assault occurred, but DNA results received in March 2016 linked Delgadillo to the crime, according to the declaration. He was arrested in September in the Whitewater area.

Court documents state that while authorities investigated the 2014 attack, Delgadillo was linked to four other sexual assaults across the Coachella Valley, including cases investigated by the Indio, Palm Springs and Desert Hot Springs police departments and the sheriff’s Palm Desert station.

Delgadillo remains jailed in Indio in lieu of $1.5 million bail.