A former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl and supplying her with methamphetamine.
According to a release from L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón’s office, retired deputy Benny Vicente Caluya Jr. and a second man, 68-year-old Clifford Leimana Abihai, allegedly picked up the girl as she was walking alone in Lancaster between Aug. 27 and 28 and gave her meth.
After this encounter, the girl was taken back to Caluya’s Lancaster residence where the alleged sexual assault was said to have taken place.
The former deputy, who retired from the department in 2001, has been charged with one felony count of lewd act upon a child aged 14 or 15 as well as a felony count for sale or furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.
Abihai, 49, only received the latter charge, Gascón’s office said.
Both men were arraigned on Sept. 30 and pleaded not guilty. Caluya, Jr., 68, was released on $250,000 bond on Sept. 3 and Abihai posted $100,000 bond on Sept. 5, the DA’s office added.
A preliminary hearing for the two men is scheduled for Nov. 12.
If convicted as charged, the ex-LASD deputy could receive up to nine years and eight months in prison. Abihai’s maximum possible sentence is nine years.
“It is particularly egregious that a former law enforcement officer sexually preyed upon a teenage girl and along with his accomplice, supplied her with methamphetamine,” DA Gascón said. “These reprehensible acts are utterly unacceptable, [and] we have a solemn obligation to ensure her voice is not only heard but amplified.”
The case is being investigated by the District Attorney’s Office’s Sex Crimes Division and by the LASD’s Special Victims Bureau.
