A 53-year-old man was convicted on Wednesday, May 8, of sexually assaulting for more than a half-decade two boys he was tutoring at an Orange County after-school program.
An Orange County Superior Court jury deliberated for less than five hours before finding Zeta “Jimmy” Dhanapanth guilty of a dozen counts of felony lewd acts with a minor under 14, as well as a single count of possession of child pornography.
Dhanapanth met the two boys — who were 8 and 9 when the abuse began — while tutoring them in math and English at the Anaheim Indepencia Center in an unincorporated area near Anaheim. Dhanapanth worked at the center — which is focused on the Spanish-speaking community — from 2012 to 2016.
After sitting close to the boys and touching their legs, Dhanapanth moved on to placing his hands in their shorts and eventually to more explicit sexual acts, prosecutors said. He showed the boys pornographic material, prosecutors said, read them stories from the internet focused on sex between adults and children and gave at least one boy gifts in exchange for sexual acts.
A teacher at one point walked in on Dhanapanth and one of the boys in a “compromising situation,” leading a supervisor to contact law enforcement.
Investigators searched Dhanapanth’s home and found child-pornography videos on electronic devices. Along with his work at the center, Dhanapanth also volunteered for a School on Wheels and provided tutoring at the homes of needy students.
Dhanapanth was his own attorney during the trial, after getting rid of his court-appointed lawyer on the eve of jury selection. He denied molesting the boys and questioned what he claimed were “inconsistencies” in the boys’ stories.
Deputy District Attorney Sarah Rahman, during closing arguments on Wednesday in a Santa Ana courtroom, noted that Dhanapanth had testified to possessing child pornography, having a sexual interest in children and finding the boys attractive, even if he claimed not to have acted on his apparent desires.
Dhanapanth is scheduled to return to court for sentencing on July 18. He faces up to 225 years to life in prison.