Santa Ana Police arrested Joseph Frances Deluca, a 47-year-old resident of Irvine, for sexual assault of a minor. Deluca was working as a substitute teacher at Edison Elementary School when a 10-year-old female student alleged that Deluca had touched her inappropriately in the classroom the day before.
School officers reported this incident to the Santa Ana Police Department on Thursday, September 29, 2022. Deluca was no longer at the school, and detectives interviewed other students as they looked for additional victims.
After speaking with students, detectives learned that Deluca was currently substituting at Robert Heidman Elementary school in Tustin. Santa Ana Police detectives arrested Deluca, who was a full-time teacher for 15 years and a substitute teacher for the last two years. Deluca has been a teacher for both elementary and middle schools in Westminster, Buena Park, Santa Ana, Fountain Valley, and Tustin.
Santa Ana Police Department detectives believe there may be additional victims. Santa Ana Police Department is asking anyone with information to contact Detective Jessica Taylor at 714-245-8349, jtaylor5@santa-ana.org, or Orange County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-TIP-OCCS.
Manly, Stewart & Finaldi has represented hundreds of child sexual abuse victims of coaches and employees in California schools. We were the lead attorneys helping sexual abuse victims in recover $852 million from the University of Southern California. We are also the lead attorneys representing Olympic athletes and victims of former US Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team Doctor Larry Nassar and secured $890 million in settlements for our clients. We secured a $243.6 million settlement on behalf of sexual abuse victims at UCLA. In each of these cases we have helped victims and families get justice by conducting a thorough investigation of the organization and the school . We secured a settlement of $140 million on behalf of 81 child sexual abuse victims at Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles. This was the largest child sexual abuse settlement by a public school district in history. In many cases we have discovered that administrators and executives know that the perpetrator was a danger to children and either did nothing or actively covered up the crimes.
