Jury reaches decision on fate of Ocean Springs school bus driver accused of sexual assault
A jury on Wednesday convicted former Ocean Springs school bus driver Sergio Sandoval of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old student on a school bus in 2014.
The jury deliberated for more than four hours before convicting the 69-year-old Sandoval on two counts of touching of a child for lustful purposes and one count of sexual battery.
He will serve a total of 30 years in prison after Judge Kathy King Jackson sentenced him to the maximum penalty on each charge to run concurrently.
Sandoval denied any wrongdoing, but did not testify in his own defense.
Before the sentencing, the victim’s father addressed the judge.
“I don’t have a lot to say, but what I would like to say is Mr. Sandoval victimized my daughter and he kept victimizing her over and over (by) abusing the judicial process,” the father said. “It has taken a toll on her. It’s taken a toll on our family.
“That is something she is going to live with and we are going to live with for a long time.”
“This is one of the most brazen and bold crimes that I have seen,” District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said. “He was driving a school bus with children and molesting an 8 year old. He is the epitome of a sexual predator. When he got on that bus everyday, that was his playground.”
“He has shown no remorse.”
Sandoval did not address the court, but two of his children and his wife begged for leniency in sentencing, pointing out that he had no criminal record.
Judge Jackson had no sympathy for Sandoval.
“You have a wonderful family,” Jackson said. “(The victim) has a wonderful family. It’s just a pathetic set of facts. You brought it all on yourself.”
The victim, then a second-grader at Oak Park Elementary, said the bus driver touched her private parts every time she got on the school bus from mid-September to early October.
Sandoval had named her a bus monitor, given her candy, and allowed her to walk around the bus even though policy called for students to remain seated while the bus was moving.
Sandoval, the girl said, would wrap one arm around her back and then reach down and touch her. He drove with one hand, she said, and touched her with the other. The girl had also confided in another student about what was happening to her and how she did not like it.
In closing arguments Thursday morning, McIlrath and Assistant District Attorney Justin Lovorn urged a jury to use their common sense to convict Sandoval of the crimes.
McIlrath said to the jury that prosecutors, despite what defense attorney Jim Davis has suggested, would not ask jury to convict an innocent person.
“You took an oath to convict if you have evidence that is beyond a reasonable doubt,” McIlrath said. “He told her not to tell. He told an 8-year-old girl to keep it a secret. He conditioned her.”
And the girl tried to keep that secret until the alleged crimes escalated that early October when, McIlrath recounted again, that Sandoval licked his fingers, shoved his hand down the girl’s pants and underneath her panties, penetrated her and then licked his fingers again.”
McIlrath and Lovorn pointed out that the victim has been consistent in her accounting of what happened to her from the beginning
“The truth is Sergio Sandoval was a bus driver in Ocean Springs and he abused his authority,” McIlrath said. “He abused the trust those parents placed in him.”
As parents, Lovorn said, you expect your children to be safe when they are sent off to school.
“As soon as those (school) bus doors slammed behind her, ...he (Sandoval) was in control,” Lovorn said.
Defense attorney Jim Davis told the jury to consider there was no videotaped evidence of the actual crimes occurring.
In addition, he pointed out the girl had not been taken to a hospital to be checked out after the alleged crimes.
“This is a case where you have a child pointing a finger at an adult and calling them a sex offender,” Davis said.
This story was originally published November 20, 2019 at 2:44 PM.
