Beaner Wrestler charged with diddling 12 year old girl

[Harvey Daye, Jr]

http://www.ocregister.com/news/castaneda-354246-girl-prosecutors.html

By DOUG IRVING / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

An amateur wrestler best known for his chipped teeth and his ragged
backstory was convicted this week of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old
girl he met online.

Matthew Castaneda, 35, faces a maximum sentence of 24 years to life in
prison. Prosecutors say he assaulted the girl at an Anaheim motel after
trading messages with her on MySpace and arranging a meeting near South
Coast Plaza.
Castaneda was featured in a 2004 Register cover story as a recovering
alcoholic and former gang member seeking a new life in the "lucha libre"
wrestling ring. He took his stage name, Chippy Sanchez, from the chipped
teeth of his brawling early life.

A photograph of a bare-chested Castaneda praying before a match, which
ran with the 2004 story, shows the same emblem tattooed on his chest
that appeared in a mug shot that Anaheim police released when they
arrested him. The photo also shows what appears to be a "13" tattooed on
his abdomen, also apparent in the Anaheim pictures.

The District Attorney's Office said it could not confirm that the man
convicted Monday of aggravated sexual assault and lewd acts on a child
was the amateur wrestler.

Prosecutors say Castaneda befriended the12-year-old girl on MySpace in
November 2009. The girl's profile said she was 19 and, in online chats,
she told Castaneda she was 16, Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Herrera
said.

He met the girl near South Coast plaza a few months later, then took her
by bus to Anaheim, according to the District Attorney's Office. They
walked through parks and then went to Zaby's Motor Lodge where,
prosecutors said, Castaneda sexually assaulted the girl and then fled.

Deputy Public Defender Lisa Kopelman conceded that her client had sex
with the girl, but argued it was not forced and that he should be
convicted of lesser molestation charges.

Afterward, the girl flagged down an Anaheim police traffic controller
and asked to be taken home, prosecutors said. Police in Santa Ana –
where the girl had been reported missing – learned she had been
assaulted by Castaneda, prosecutors said.

Castaneda was arrested days later at a Costa Mesa warehouse. The jury
that convicted him on Monday failed to reach a verdict on a second
charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 and attempted
aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14, court records show.

Castaneda was on parole for a 2007 domestic-violence conviction and for
violating a restraining order, according to the District Attorney's Office.

World Power Wrestling, the organization for which Castaneda wrestled,
did not return a phone call seeking comment. It specializes in the
highly theatrical, carefully choreographed Lucha Libre wresting popular
for decades in Mexico.

The 2004 Register article described Castaneda seeking redemption from
his troubled past inside the ropes of the Lucha Libre ring. He talked of
smoking marijuana, drinking, running with gang members and brawling with
his father. "I needed to do something with my life," he said in the
article. "I always loved wrestling."

Castaneda will have to register for life as a sex offender. His next
court hearing is in June.

City News Service contributed to this report.