A former youth counselor for an Anaheim church who molested four girls more than a decade ago, and was later caught with child pornography, was sentenced Wednesday, July 31, to 125 years to life in prison.
An Orange County Superior Court jury earlier this month found Todd Christian Hartman guilty of nine felony counts, including oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child, lewd acts with a child and possession of child pornography.
The victims, during emotional statements to the court, described Hartman — formerly a youth counselor at Vineland Church in Anaheim — as a serial sex offender.
“Todd was someone in my life I was supposed to look up to, someone I was supposed to trust,” one of the women said. “Someone I trusted completely betrayed me and my family as well.”
The women urged Orange County Superior Court Judge Gassia Apkarian to make sure Hartman spends the rest of his life behind bars.
“The price for this man’s sexual gratification was paid for by innocent children,” one of the women told the judge. “If you give him the opportunity he will do it again.”
Judge Apkarian noted that Hartman’s actions were calculated, rather than crimes of opportunity, and that his victims were vulnerable children who trusted him.
“It takes a lot of courage to do what you did,” the judge told the victims. “The court heard you, the jury heard you, I hope you take solace from that.”
In January 2010, a then-10-year-old girl told detectives with the Fullerton Police Department that Hartman had repeatedly touched and kissed her body and ignored her pleas to stop while she was staying over for two nights at a friend’s relative’s home. The friend — who was 12 at the time — also reported that Hartman had touched her.
When the detectives spoke to Hartman, he denied touching either girl inappropriately, but said he had tickled their ribs and claimed they had either sat in a chair with him or on his lap.
Prosecutors at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office reviewed the allegations, but filed no charges at the time.
Four years later, in October 2014, a tip led members of a task force that included Newport Beach police and Homeland Security investigators to search a Newport Beach home where Hartman was living. They found thousands of suspected child pornography images and hundreds of videos in electronics belonging to Hartman, according to court filings. Hartman allegedly told an investigator that he had downloaded the “indecent images of children” after developing a “morbid curiosity” for them.
Agents also found images of Hartman sitting next to two girls, who turned out to be sisters, according to court filings. The sisters told investigators that their family had met Hartman through Vineyard Church. The sisters said Hartman would come over after church to “watch movies, talk or wrestle,” according to court filings, but at the time denied he had inappropriately touched them.
A pastor at Vineyard Church admitted to agents that she had warned Hartman about his interactions with children, according to court filings, and had shifted his responsibilities so that he didn’t have any direct, unsupervised contact with them.
Hartman was taken into custody in connection to the child pornography. But the federal case fell apart after a judge determined that he hadn’t been informed of his Miranda rights before talking to an investigator.
One of the sisters was told by their parents that Hartman had been released from federal custody and “melted down,” prosecutors allege. She disclosed that Hartman had actually touched her and molested her. Hartman, in emails to the girls’ father, acknowledged touching her inappropriately, but wrote that he had apologized to the girl and had asked her to forgive him.
Hartman was ultimately tried and convicted of molesting or sexually assaulting all four girls. Hartman’s lengthy sentence means he was ordered to serve 125 years behind bars before he is eligible for parole.
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