The search continues for a California pastor who has been on the run since authorities identified him in surveillance footage taken outside of a Covina hotel where a preteen girl was sexually assaulted this past week.
Investigators believe that Douglas Rivera, of Baldwin Park, sat and masturbated to a 10 and 12-year-old who passed him by in the parking lot of Vanllee Hotel and Suites. According to reports, he sat and staked out a Chinese tourist group on Wednesday, February 7. He is alleged to have then followed the girls back to their room.
Assuming that he was a chaperone and that his visit was part of their trip, the girls reportedly let Rivera in. It was at that point that he is said to have imposed himself on one of the minors.
Despite evidence of Rivera's presence at the scene including video of him circling the lot and pulling his Dodge truck up to the front of the girls' room, in addition to images of him getting out and approaching their door, he has denied any involvement in the incident.
In a video that he posted to Instagram on Friday, the 40-year-old God's Gypsy Christian Church pastor claims that he was merely at the "wrong place at the wrong time."
In the recording, Rivera would go on to promise that he was going to turn himself in to clear his name, but authorities say that he is yet to have come forward.
