45-year-old man sentenced to 40 years for sexually abusing multiple girls he met online

A 45-year-old man who pleaded guilty earlier this year to sexually abusing multiple girls and contacting several more online was sentenced Friday in San Diego Superior Court to 40 years in prison.

Ivan Matias-Montes admitted to manipulating at least three minors that he had contacted through social media to meet up with him. He would then sexually assault them.

One victim identified in court as Jane Doe said he had first contacted her when she was 14 years old through Instagram. What followed was years’ worth of physical and emotional torment perpetuated by a man who had at home a wife and a daughter the same age, she said.

“I was 15 years old, hadn’t even gotten my driver’s license yet … and an adult man was telling me that his whole life depended on me,” the victim said in a statement to Matias-Montes in court on Friday. “I felt trapped in our contact, scared to leave, but also unhappy to stay.”

Judge John Pro, before handing down a sentence that was double the amount of years the victim had requested, called the case one of the most “horrific cases of sexual abuse, physical trauma, psychological trauma and predatory acts” that he had seen in his decades-long legal career.

Jane Doe was the victim of more than a dozen assaults “committed by a 40-year-old man repeatedly in vehicles, seedy hotels and the bedroom where she sleeps,” Pro said. “This lasted for years, and what’s more is that this is just a snapshot of the same predatory method that this defendant used with countless other vulnerable, underage victims and girls.”

Investigators said they would later learn she was one of three underage girls Matias-Montes met up with in person to sexually abuse between 2016 and 2022. They learned he had contacted many more through social media, but the 85 counts he pleaded guilty to largely stemmed from his meet-ups with Jane Doe. Deputy District Attorney Carder Chan said the other two victims, 14 and 16, did not participate in the trial due to fear of having to relive their harmful memories.

“The defendant’s abhorrent acts have robbed each of these victims of a fragile and important piece of their lives that they will never get back,” Pro added.

During the hearing Friday, Matias-Montes was seen looking through the glass of a holding cell on the side of the courtroom gallery.

He listened as Jane Doe described years of abuse and emotional manipulation that left her feeling isolated, trapped and guilt-ridden about living a normal high school life. During her victim statement, she described some of Matias-Montes’ lies, such as that he was in his 20’s and in a committed relationship with her, when in reality, he was an older, married man with kids.

“I assume my wrongdoing, and there’s no way we can work back time and erase what I’ve done,” Matias-Montes said. “I have a young daughter, she’s 13 years old. I would like nothing like this to happen (to her).”

Matias-Montes’ defense attorney declined to provide a comment to reporters following the sentencing.

The multi-year abuse led to various physical illnesses and emotional traumas that caused Jane Doe to miss weeks of school at a time and withdraw from her friends and family, she said. She eventually filed her first police report a week before her 18th birthday in June 2024.

“He would punish her with silence, shame and guilt,” said Chan, the prosecutor. “He taught her that her worth depended on him, keeping him happy, keeping him close and keeping him satisfied.”

Although now a college student looking forward to graduate school, Jane Doe said she eventually came forward so that other potential victims would not have to feel the physical and mental trauma she still experiences to this day.

“I will always pick what’s right, even if it’s hard, and … coming forward was the right thing to do, because I’m protecting all of the underage girls that this happened to in the past, present, or that this would have happened to in the future,” Jane Doe said after the sentencing. “I wanted to look the person who hurt me in the eyes and tell them how much they affected me, but with power behind my voice.”