Jason Valentine Esparza, 57, is originally from Warren, Ohio, United States. He has connections to different cities in California, USA including Fullerton, Huntington and Long Beach.

In September 2022, the Huntington Beach Police Department received an anonymous cyber-tip from the Internet Crimes Against Children program and started investigating Esparza. Over several decades, he allegedly groomed women to babysit children as young as 4 years old and bring them to hotels so that he could molest them.

Posing as an adult female babysitting a 4-year-old girl, detectives communicated with him. During those communications, he allegedly expressed his desire to perform very specific sexual acts on the child.

On April 7, 2023, Esparza was told that the child was at a hotel room in Huntington Beach. When he entered the room that day, he was arrested by undercover detectives.

Esparza was charged with two felony counts of attempted forcible lewd act on a child under the age of 14 and three felony counts of attempted oral copulation or sexual penetration of a child 10 years old or younger. If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 16 years and 4 months in jail.

Currently being held at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange, California, Esparza will be arraigned at the Stephen K. Tamura Justice Center in Westminster, California on April 28, 2023. His bail was set at $1 million.