(MD)
Washington Post
February 11, 2025
By Dan Morse
In Montgomery County, Maryland, Ervin J. Alfaro-Lopez, 34, faces up to 25 years in prison and deportation.
A former teacher at a small church in Montgomery County, Maryland, pleaded guilty Monday in four sexual assault cases amid allegations he abused four girls ages 6 through 12, including two he fondled while their eyes were shut during prayers, authorities said in court.Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI.
Ervin J. Alfaro-Lopez, 34, faces up to 25 years in state prison at his sentencing in August. Federal immigration authorities, who have said Alfaro-Lopez unlawfully entered the United States three times and has been the subject of two removal proceedings, indicated they will seek his deportation after he serves his Maryland sentence.
Alfaro-Lopez, who recently lived in Germantown, said little in court Monday besides answering standard plea-hearing questions on whether he understood his decision and its ramifications. He pleaded guilty to one count of sex abuse of a minor and three counts of third-degree sex offense.
State sentencing guidelines, while not binding, recommend a prison term somewhere between 5.75 and 22 years, according to Monday’s proceedings. In exchange for the guilty pleas, prosecutors agreed to cap his maximum sentence at 25 years.
In the spring of 2023, according to Montgomery County police, a 17-year-old girl reported being sexually abused seven years prior by a teacher at her church, which is in the Rockville area. That led to a broader investigation, authorities say, involving a total of four victims who said Alfaro-Lopez abused them during a stretch from 2014 to 2018.
The 17-year-oldspoke about several incidents involving Alfaro-Lopez when she was about 10 years old. In one case, the girl said, the two were in a room at the church with other children when he fondled her, detectives alleged in charging documents. She also recalled that during a retreat or a vigil, Alfaro-Lopez sexually assaulted her and told her to stay quiet so other children — ages 4 to 11 and sleeping — wouldn’t wake up, according to an affidavit investigators filed in court.
Another reported victim said Alfaro-Lopez abused her about seven years earlier during a “midnight mass” event, according to court documents. While children were in a darkroom watching a movie, the girl told detectives, Alfaro-Lopez called her to the back of the room to sit on his lap and began fondling her, according to court records.
Another victim said when she was 7 or 8 years old and Alfaro-Lopez was her teacher, he fondled her while inside the church. She reported another such incident that occurred “while the other students were praying,” Montgomery Assistant State’s Attorney John Grochowski said in court Monday.
A fourth victim, according to the prosecutor, told detectives that when she was 11 or 12 Alfaro-Lopez fondled her “on multiple occasions while the other students were praying.”
Alfaro-Lopez remains held at the Montgomery County jail without bond, an official said Monday evening. At Alfaro-Lopez’s sentencing, according to Grochowski, four victims and their families may speak in court.
Last year, James Covington, a spokesman for the Baltimore office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said Alfaro-Lopez had been arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol near Lake Charles, Louisiana, on March 23, 2015, issued a notice to appear before an immigration judge and released on a $7,500 bond.
Three years later, he was ordered removed from the United States, leading ICE to arrest him in early 2019, Covington said. Alfaro-Lopez left the country three months later but crossed into the United States again in 2020 and was deported, ICE said. It was unclear how and when he most recently returned to the United States.Share
By Dan Morse
Dan Morse covers courts and crime in Montgomery County. He arrived at the paper in 2005, after reporting stops at the Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun and Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is the author of “The Yoga Store Murder.”follow on X@morsedan