Advertisement
Advertisement

Guilty plea in dental tech groping case

Share

A former dental technician accused of groping female patients while they were under anesthesia pleaded guilty Wednesday to 13 felony and misdemeanor sex crime charges.

Luis Alfonso Ramos, 36, admitted charges related to incidents involving 13 female victims, all of whom were patients at the Park Boulevard Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Office in North Park. The victims ranged in age from 17 to 63, a prosecutor said.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Michael Smyth scheduled a sentencing hearing for Aug. 26, when Ramos could be sent to prison for up to 15 years.

Advertisement

Ramos was charged in February with seven felony counts of sexual battery of an unconscious person, all of which were linked to a Jan. 21 incident, when a teenage girl underwent a dental procedure at the office on Park Boulevard near Polk Avenue. The girl told police she was waking up when she realized someone was touching her inappropriately. The crime was captured on security video, prosecutors said.

After that, San Diego police sex crimes detectives began reviewing hours of video from the surgery office and identified 13 victims. The incidents took place between January 2015 and early this year.

“There were more complaints than we were able to charge,” Deputy District Attorney Martin Doyle said Wednesday, adding that some people weren’t sure what may have happened to them while they were anesthetized.

Ramos did not administer the anesthesia. His job as a technician was to clean up after the dental procedures were completed, the prosecutor said.

Ramos’ case was scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, when a judge was expected to hear from witnesses and determine whether there was enough evidence for the case to go to trial. Instead, many of those victim witnesses sat quietly in the courtroom as Ramos pleaded guilty to nine felony and two misdemeanors.

Outside the courtroom, Doyle said the victims were relieved that the case was nearly over, and glad that the defendant would not be able to harm anyone else the way they had been harmed.

The prosecutor said many of the victims had been afraid to testify.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Advertisement