SANTA ANA, Calif.—A former youth minister for an Anaheim church was sentenced July 31 to more than 120 years to life in prison for molesting four girls and possessing child pornography.
Todd Christian Hartman was convicted July 10 of eight felony counts related to sexual assaults on four girls as well as one felony count of possession of child pornography.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Gassia Apkarian sentenced the 41-year-old defendant to 120 years to life plus another four years and four months in prison. He has 2,926 days credit for time served in jail so far.
The case against Hartman started with Newport Beach police in October 2014 when investigators were tipped about child pornography on the defendant’s devices at his home, according to court records. Hartman lived with his mother at the time.
A computer in his room had more than 1,500 suspected child pornography and child erotica images and about 400 suspected child pornographic videos, according to prosecutors. Another hard drive had about 5,000 suspected child pornography images and a thumb drive contained about 80 deleted video files with names associated with child porn, prosecutors said.
Hartman was indicted by federal prosecutors, who later dismissed the case against him when a detective failed to read the defendant his Miranda rights, prosecutors said.
Hartman was previously accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl and her 12-year-old friend Dec. 29 and Dec. 30, 2009, when they were at one of the alleged victims’ great-grandmother’s home in Fullerton, but the Orange County District Attorney’s Office declined to file a case at that time. The charges in Hartman’s current trial included those same accusers.
When the federal case against Hartman was dropped and he was released from custody in January 2016, he told the father of two sisters he met through a youth ministry at Vineyard Church in Anaheim that the federal charges were dismissed and he planned to visit them, prompting one of the girls to have a “meltdown,” and tell her mother she was molested, Deputy District Attorney Scott Wooldridge said.
Hartman also admitted molesting the girl on a phone call to her mother while a police investigator eavesdropped, Wooldridge said.
Hartman was a friend of the family of one of the victims in the Fullerton case, the prosecutor said. Hartman, who had been drinking, molested one of the girls on two consecutive days, Wooldridge said. The girl’s friend accused Hartman of also molesting her, the prosecutor said.
Hartman’s attorney, Marji Kirkwood of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, implored jurors to consider each allegation separately and to avoid lumping them all together.
The defense attorney also said jurors could consider a lesser charge of sexual battery for one of the victims, arguing a more serious charge was not proved.
Kirkwood also argued there was no evidence proving her client knew there was child pornography on his computers.
