HAWTHORNE, CA—What drives a person to harm, molest and unlawfully restrain a child?
Jorge Eduardo Lopez, 33, may know the answer. Hawthorne police arrested the Los Angeles resident on Wednesday, August 13 at approximately 3:30 p.m. along the 13100 block of Shoup Avenue in Hawthorne. The 5’3”, 125-lb. driving instructor was charged with three related offenses: false imprisonment (236PC), attempted sexual battery by restraint (243.4(A)PC) and the curiously named “annoy/etc child under 18” (647.6(A)PC).
Police recorded Lopez’s arrest in this Hawthorne neighborhood.
That curiously named charge is described in two parts under the California Penal Code as: “647.6. (a) (1) Every person who annoys or molests any child under 18 years of age shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars ($5,000), by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both the fine and imprisonment. - (2) Every person who, motivated by an unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in children, engages in conduct with an adult whom he or she believes to be a child under 18 years of age, which conduct, if directed toward a child under 18 years of age, would be a violation of this section, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars ($5,000), by imprisonment in a county jail for up to one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.”
For all three charges, the total bail was set at $80,000. Of that amount, the third charge, 647.6(A)PC, clocked in at just $5,000.