Man Accused of Sodomizing Underaged San Angelo Girls He Met on Facebook

A 24-year-old man who says he’s married on Facebook has been accused of using the social networking site to solicit sodomy and oral sex from teenagers, offering to pay $100 for favors or exchanging for rides around the county.

Jose Angel Zapata has been in jail since March 4 on a growing list of charges that started with online solicitation of a minor sexual conduct, a third degree felony, and has since swelled to include a first-degree charge of aggravated assault of a child and a second-degree sexual assault of a child charge.

Documents filed with the court cite three separate instances in which Zapata is alleged to have contacted underage San Angelo girls via Facebook and requested they perform sexual favors, beginning on March 21, 2014, when he signed in under the alias Luke Garcia and met a 13-year-old girl.

According to the complaint, Zapata offered the girl $100 for sexual favors and said he didn’t mind when she told him she was only 14. On the next day, the two met behind Armenta’s Café at Oakes and Ave. J, and the girl, actually only 13 at the time, got into Zapata’s truck.

For two $50 bills the girl is alleged to have performed oral sex on Zapata. The complaint states that until December 2014, Zapata continued to solicit sex from the girl, offering money in exchange.

In mid-September, the victim told Zapata that she was only 13 years old and he needs to leave her alone. “The Defendant replies that she is the perfect age,” the complaint states.

An arrest warrant was issued for aggravated sexual assault of a child on March 11 this year.

Later on in 2014, on Sept. 24, Zapata, operating as his alias of 25-year-old Luke Garcia, allegedly contacted a 15-year-old girl and made her the same $100 offer for sexual favors. The complaint states that the victim notified him or her age and he stated he was 10 years older the following day.

On Oct. 1, the two made an agreement to meet, and Zapata picked up the teenager from her home the following day in his pickup, the complaint states. He then drove out to Christoval to Mineral Wells Road and engaged in sodomy with the victim, but rather than giving her money, he drove her to a friend’s house in Christoval in exchange for the sexual favors, says the complaint.

For this offense a warrant for sexual assault of a child was issued on March 11.

Although he is accused of sexually assaulting children repeatedly over the past year, Zapata was finally caught during an ongoing investigation conducted on March 4 into online solicitation of a minor.

Believing he was talking to a 15-year-old girl he’d previously met in person and online, Zapata went on Facebook Messenger and began making arrangements to meet the girl  “at an apartment complex with the intent to engage in sexual contact, sexual intercourse and deviate sexual intercourse…” the complaint states.

Before traveling to the appointed location, the complaint says Zapata sent sexually explicit messages and distributed sexually explicit material to the detective he believed was the 15-year-old girl.

Zapata was arrested without incident and transported to the county jail, where he was booked on a second-degree felony charge of online solicitation of a minor sexual conduct. The first-degree aggravated sexual assault of a child, second-degree sexual assault of a child and third-degree online solicitation of a minor charges were added on March 11.

He is currently being held in jail where is bail is set at $600,000.