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An undocumented immigrant, nearly 19 years old and still a high school junior, received a sentence of less than a year in jail on Tuesday for inappropriately touching almost a dozen girls in the corridors of a Virginia high school.
Israel Flores Ortiz, hailing from El Salvador, entered the United States without documentation in 2024. Last month, he faced charges for groping teenage girls at Fairfax High School.
The 18-year-old was convicted on nine counts of assault and battery earlier this month in this unsettling case, according to a report by Fox News.
While he was sentenced to serve over a year, his actual time behind bars is reduced to 135 days, taking into account the time he has already spent in custody and other considerations, as reported by the outlet.
“I hurt them,” Ortiz admitted in court, offering an apology to both the victims and his parents.
Meanwhile, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have filed a detainer to take Flores Ortiz into custody for deportation proceedings when he completes his local jail sentence.
Fairfax County has sanctuary laws that restrict cooperation with ICE and the sheriff’s office usually does not comply with immigration detainers.
The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office was tipped off to the sick assaults on March 5 after several teen girls came forward, with Flores Ortiz turning himself in two days later after an arrest warrant was issued.
He was initially charged in nine groping incidents at the school, with four more charges later tacked on as more girls came forward to report similar assaults.
He was charged as an adult but was tried in juvenile court because of his and the victims’ ages — and was found guilty of nine misdemeanor counts, not guilty of three others and had the final charge dismissed.
“I think what is really important is this is not going to go away for my client,” Demetrios Pikrallidas, the attorney for one victim, told WJLA-TV News. “This happened, it’s gotten a lot of attention.
“It’s the vulnerability and the fact that she was touched in a school setting and that shouldn’t of happened,” the lawyer added. “It goes on beyond today. My job is to make sure it never happens again.”