Porterville man confesses to rape, child molestation
Victims come forward detailing 22 years of assault
A 37-year-old Porterville man was jailed earlier this week for allegedly molesting and raping women and children for more than two decades.
Initially, Adrian Nunez was arrested after voluntarily confessing to police Tuesday evening that he molested a child, said the Porterville Police Department.
After learning of his arrest, three other female victims — ages 15, 12 and 28 and all related to Nunez — came forward the following afternoon, accusing him of molesting and raping them for the past 22 years, when the suspect was just 15 years old.
Nunez is currently being held in the Tulare County Jail in lieu of $1.25 million bail on the following charges: Incest, continual sexual abuse of a child; child molestation by force; oral copulation by force; sex acts with a child under 10 years of age; sex with a foreign object on a child under 14 years of age; and rape by force.
All of three of the family members told police that they were afraid to report these incidents until learning of his arrest on Tuesday. According to several of Nunez’ Facebook pages, he attended Monache High School and Porterville College and worked in the agriculture industry.
PPD officers were in the right place at the right time because Nunez was not the focus of the call which brought them to a residence in town. At approximately 7 p.m. Tuesday, officers were conducting a welfare check at an undisclosed location in the city and began talking with Nunez, who was not related to the check.
During the conversation, Nunez began confessing to molesting a child in the 400 block of South Main Street in Porterville. PPD looked into his story, determined Nunez was telling the truth and arrested and booked him into the Tulare County Jail.
At about 1 p.m. Wednesday, two girls, ages 15 and 12, walked into the Porterville Police Department headquarters alleging years of continued sexual abuse by Nunez.
Detectives interviewed the teenager who stated, beginning in about 2005, Nunez began forcibly molesting, raping and oral copulating her. These incidents are alleged to have occurred two to three times a month and at times once a week over an 18-month period, estimating to have occurred over 200 times.
The 12-year-old alleged that Nunez attempted to molest her on one occasion in 2015, however, she resisted which caused him to cease any further assault.
A 28-year-old woman also traveled to the department’s lobby at 350 N. D St., alleging that from 1995 to 2010 Nunez sexually assaulted her on several occasions at residences in Poplar. Nunez would have been 15 years old when the aggression began and she would have been just 6 years old.
Detectives served a search warrant at Nunez’ residence in the 400 block of South Main where they collected potential digital evidence, PPD said.
Anyone who has information regarding these incidents is asked to contact PPD Det. Orlando Ortiz at 782-7400.