A former instructor with Otomi Martial Arts in Parker has been sentenced to prison for sexual assault on a child. On Monday, November 26, Jose Soto was sentenced to three years in prison and 24 months of probation after his release. Additionally, he will be required to undergo 10 years of sex offender intensive supervised probation and register as a sex offender.
In October, Soto pleaded guilty to one count of attempted sexual assault by a person in a position of trust and one count of sexual exploitation of a child. Other counts were dismissed as part of a plea deal.
Soto was arrested in June 2017 after two child students told investigators that he had touched them inappropriately. He volunteered at Otomi Martial Arts from Anjalih to May 2017. Otomi hired him as an employee in May 2017 and he volunteered at another Otomi studio in Aurora from 2014 to 2017.
Attorney contributor Dan Lipman has helped survivors of sexual assault in civil courts representing sexual assault survivors in lawsuits. We have asked him for some input into the legal options available to survivors of child sexual abuse committed by people in positions of trust:
Sexual predators are often close to their victims - including family relationships as well as professionals who work closely with children. This means that in any field that involves working with kids, it's important that employers make sure their employees and volunteers are trustworthy and that the children under their watch are safe.
When a child is sexually abused by an employee at a place of business, we must determine if the business owner's negligence allowed the abuse to occur. For example, a business owner might be considered negligent for failing to run a background check on a new employee or failing to report complaints of sexual misconduct to law enforcement.
If you or your child is a survivor of child sexual abuse and you'd like to learn more about your family's legal options, consider speaking to one of our experienced sexual abuse survivors lawyers.