Riverside, Calif. — For years, the foster care system in Southern California sent children to Edward Sepulveda’s home. Riverside police say he fostered approximately 90 of them. Now the 68-year-old is charged with sexually abusing at least four children who lived with him as foster kids, and investigators say they believe there are more victims who have not come forward.
Sepulveda was arrested July 17 and booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center, KNX News reported. In August, Riverside police went public with the case and asked other possible victims to call. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody on $1 million bail, according to MyNewsLA.com.
What Riverside police allege
The case began in September 2025, when the Riverside Police Department’s Sexual Assault-Child Abuse Unit received information about what Det. Steve Espinosa called “historical sexual abuse involving a child,” MyNewsLA reported. Over nearly a year, detectives identified three more alleged victims. All are now adults, and their names have not been released.
Police said the abuse occurred approximately 24 years ago at Sepulveda’s residence on the 600 block of Highlander Drive in Riverside and at various locations in Moreno Valley. ABC7 Los Angeles reported the alleged crimes spanned from 1998 through at least 2013. Reports differ on the victims: MyNewsLA described four girls, while ABC7 reported at least three girls and one boy, some under age 10.
Investigators confirmed that Sepulveda “fostered approximately 90 children over the years,” Espinosa said, according to MyNewsLA.
“It takes some time for some of these victims to come forward.”
Det. Steven Espinosa, Riverside Police Department, to ABC7 Los Angeles
The charges
According to MyNewsLA, Sepulveda faces seven counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor, plus one count each of lewd acts on a child, sexual penetration of a child and statutory rape. He pleaded not guilty at an arraignment before Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jay Kiel. A felony settlement conference is set for Dec. 9 at the Riverside Hall of Justice. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Ninety children and no answers about oversight
A foster home is not a private home in the ordinary sense. It is licensed, it is paid, and it is supposed to be monitored. Every one of the roughly 90 children who passed through Sepulveda’s home was placed there by the child-welfare system after being separated from their own families.
The public reporting so far does not say which agency licensed Sepulveda, whether he was certified through Riverside County directly or through a private foster family agency, or whether any complaints were made about his home while children lived there. It does not say whether the children placed with him have been contacted, or whether their records are being reviewed. Those are the questions Riverside County and the state should be answering now.
If the alleged abuse stretched over many years, as ABC7 reported, then caseworkers, licensing staff and agency monitors had many chances to notice. The children involved were, by definition, in the custody of the state. They had already been separated from their parents. For some of them, the adult the system chose to replace those parents is now accused of abusing them.
A familiar pattern in Riverside County
This is not the first time Riverside County foster care has faced allegations of abuse by state-approved caregivers. Earlier this year, Turpin siblings settled two civil lawsuits against Riverside County and the foster agency ChildNet, which alleged the children were abused and neglected in foster care after being rescued in 2018, KESQ reported. Neither the county nor ChildNet admitted wrongdoing. A former foster parent in that case pleaded guilty to lewd acts involving a child.
The lesson families keep learning is the same: removal is sold as protection, but the system rarely applies to its own caregivers the scrutiny it applies to parents. Abuse in foster care is too often discovered only when a grown survivor finally walks into a police station decades later.
What accountability looks like
- Disclosure of which agency licensed Sepulveda, for how long, and how often his home was inspected.
- A review of every child placed with him, including outreach to those children, now adults, and their biological families.
- Disclosure of any prior complaints about the home and how they were handled.
- Independent review of how licensing and monitoring failed to detect the alleged abuse, with findings made public.
What families can do
If your child was ever placed in a foster home in Riverside or Moreno Valley and you have concerns, Riverside police have asked anyone with information to call the Sexual Assault-Child Abuse Unit at 951-353-7945. Former foster youth have the right to request their own case files. Parents should document every concern about a placement in writing and raise it at each court hearing.
Key facts
- Suspect: Edward Sepulveda, 68, Riverside foster parent who police say fostered approximately 90 children
- Arrest: July 17, 2026; public appeal for victims Aug. 19, 2026
- Alleged victims: At least four former foster children, now adults
- Time frame: Abuse alleged about 24 years ago; ABC7 reports 1998 through at least 2013
- Charges: Seven counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor; one count each of lewd acts on a child, sexual penetration of a child and statutory rape
- Court: Not-guilty plea before Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jay Kiel; felony settlement conference Dec. 9
- Bail: $1 million
Sources
- MyNewsLA.com — Police: Foster Parent Accused of Abusing Girls May Have Targeted Others (Aug. 19, 2026)
- KNX News 1070 — Moreno Valley man who fostered 90 children arrested on sexual abuse charges (Aug. 19, 2026)
- ABC7 Los Angeles — Riverside man Edward Sepulveda arrested, accused of nearly 2 decades of sexual abuse against foster children (Aug. 20, 2026)
- KESQ — Turpin siblings reach settlement with Riverside County, ChildNet over foster care abuse (Feb. 4, 2026)
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