VISALIA – A convicted Tulare County sex offender with an eight-year history of sex-related crimes has been given a 15-year-to-life sentence for molesting a female minor in 2020.
Nathan Valentino, 31, received the sentence on July 10 in Department 10 of the Tulare County Superior Court. Valentino, who had a previous felony conviction for child molestation amongst his past crimes, pleaded guilty on May 31 to one felony count involving the Jan. 9, 2020 incident when he touched the female minor at the Tulare County Library’s Visalia branch.
The lengthy sentence followed a previous child molestation felony from 2019. After that case, Valentino was ordered by the court to register as a sex offender under penal code 290, according to the Tulare County District Attorney’s office.
Valentino also possesses three misdemeanor convictions of a sexual nature in the period from 2015 to 2019, according to the DA’s office. He was on probation for those crimes when he was arrested in the Visalia incident. The Visalia Times Delta reported that at the time of his 2020 arrest, he was wearing a court-ordered ankle monitor.
Valentino had a criminal report dating back to 2010 that included property crimes. A report by ABC 30 said that court records showed a charge of lewd acts with a girl under age 14 following an Exeter Police Department investigation. The ABC 30 report said in 2017 Valentino was ruled incompetent to stand trial and was briefly sent to Atascadero State Hospital. He was declared mentally competent later that year.
The case was prosecuted by supervising deputy district attorney Laura Jackson and investigated by Visalia Police Department officer Michael Morgantini.
