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	Appeals Court Panel Orders Re-sentencing for Former Sunland Pastor in Sex Case LA Daily News December 10, 2009 http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_13960998 A state appeals court panel has ordered a new sentencing hearing for a former pastor convicted of sex crimes involving two teenage girls who attended his Sunland church. The three-justice panel from the 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered the case against Joseph Gary Torres to be sent back to San Fernando Superior Court after determining that the evidence was "insufficient" to support his June 2008 conviction on a continuous sexual abuse count involving one of the girls. Torres, who is now 50, did not challenge his conviction on other charges, including lewd act upon a child, oral copulation of a person under 18, sodomy of a person under 18 and sexual penetration by a foreign object, involving the same girl. In its ruling released Tuesday, the appellate court panel rejected his claim that there was insufficient evidence involving his forcible sodomy conviction involving the other girl. Torres, who was pastor of Iglesia Bautista Reformada de Sunland, was arrested in September 2006 by investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department's Juvenile Division. He was sentenced in July 2008 to 32 years and four months in state prison, but that sentence is expected to be reduced in light of the appeals court panel's ruling.
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