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Erick Granados-Zeledon, a Bible teacher at Iglesia Hispana Emmanuel in Annapolis, Maryland, was sentenced today to ten years in prison for sexually molesting a ten-year-old child.
Saline San Felice, a reporter for the Capital Gazette, writes:
A former Bible study instructor at an Annapolis church was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for sexually abusing a child.
Erick Ernesto Granados-Zeledon, 39, of Edgewater, was arrested in June and charged with sex abuse of a minor and several related crimes. A 10-year-old child told investigators that Granados-Zeledon sexually abused him.
On Tuesday, Circuit Court Judge Michael Wachs sentenced him to 10 years in prison with five years probation. Granados-Zeledon is required to register as a tier three sex offender for the rest of his life and has been barred from any unsupervised contact with minors.
Granados-Zeledon was a chaperone and Bible study instructor at Iglesia Hispana Emmanuel in Annapolis, where he met the boy and his family, Assistant State’s Attorney Reva Chopra said during the sentencing hearing in Annapolis. He became a friend of the family and would take the child from the family’s residence to church, out to eat and occasionally to his home in Edgewater, police wrote in charging documents.
“His family believed (Granados-Zeledon) wanted to be a mentor for the young boy,” Chopra said in court.
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Assistant Public Defender Bethany Linden Skopp, Granados-Zeledon’s attorney, said her client admitted to investigators that he’d performed sexual acts with the child in March when he drove the boy to his home. He pleaded guilty in October, and prosecutors dropped all of the charges except for sex abuse of a minor.
At the time of his arrest, Anne Arundel County police expressed concerned there might have been more victims since Granados-Zeledon’s position at the church put him in regular contact with children.
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