Man Tried to Seduce Pre-Teen, Prosecutor Says

A man tried to talk a 12-year-old girl into sex in his Temecula home, a prosecutor said today.

Johannes Antonio Pena, 47, was charged with committing lewd acts with a child younger than 14 years, distributing harmful matter to a minor with intent to seduce and molesting a minor, according to court records.

The charges stem from an incident on Oct. 29, 2010, when the victim stayed the night at Pena's home.

To read about the police investigation into the incident, .

The victim, a thin girl now 13 years old, took the witness stand today wearing a T-shirt and jeans with a victim's advocate sitting next to her.

Pena, his wife, their family and the victim had just gotten to the house from a Halloween party, the victim testified.

She went upstairs with a young family member around 2 a.m. to get ready for bed, but when the victim and her friend came down for a drink of water, they found Pena sitting on an armchair using a laptop computer.

The victim -- who will remain nameless due to her age and the nature of the crime -- recalled how Pena drew their attention to his computer. "Do you guys want to see a video?" the victim recalled him saying. "I told him, 'Yes.'"

The video was explicit, she said. "A lady was rubbing her butt on a table," she said. "She was moaning."

The victim then asked if she could use Pena's computer to look up Megan's Law, the girl recalled.

"I asked Joe if we could look up Megan's Law. I didn't know what it was," she said.

Pena agreed, and as she used the computer, her friend fell asleep on the floor. Pena moved beside her, reached up her pajama pant leg and started rubbing her shin, the victim said.

"I told him I was uncomfortable and could he please stop," she told a prosecutor. Then stopped, but then he started caressing her arm, and she asked him to stop again.

He stopped, and then started telling stories about his previous sexual exploits, including an incident of incest, she said.

"When he was little, his aunt used to touch him when he would go in bed with her," the victim recalled of the conversation. "He told me if she tried to do it with him again, (he) would… do it with her hard."

The man then tried to reach down the victim's shirt, but she stopped him. "He said I didn't need to feel uncomfortable because he saw them already," and Pena told her he saw an occassion when her bikini top came off in Pena's swimming pool, the victim testified.

The victim then kicked her friend to wake her up, and the two headed upstairs. On the way out of the room, her friend said something strange to her stepfather. "(She) said, 'You wouldn't show us yours,'" the victim recalled.

Pena then turned out the lights, and the girls rushed upstairs, the victim recalled. A week later, she told her parents.

Judge Albert Wojcik decided the evidence was strong enough to take the case to trial on three charges, and an arraignment was set for Aug. 26.