GUILTY CA - Michael Ikeler for abduction, rape of toddler, Gardena, April 2015

Nearly three weeks after a 2-year-old girl was kidnapped from a carwash in Gardena, police on Wednesday that a Torrance man had been arrested in the crime, which authorities said included sexual assault.



A booking photo of Michael David Ikeler, 36, from a previous arrest in Lake County in 2013.
Michael David Ikeler, 36, was taken into custody a week after the April 2 kidnapping.


The girl’s disappearance from a self-serve carwash at 14929 Western Ave. about 5 p.m. April 2. launched a massive search that police called an “unprecedented response.”

Nearly 2 1/2 hours later, the toddler was found about 8 miles away in an empty, dark parking lot in Cudahy. She was hospitalized with unspecified injuries, police said at the time.

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A woman testifying in the trial of a Torrance man accused of abducting and sexually assaulting a 2-year-old Gardena girl wept in court Thursday as she recalled finding the toddler abandoned and naked in a parking lot...

As the trial has continued this week, a DNA expert testified that semen found all over the girl’s body was Ikeler’s...

Renteria said that moments before the commotion and discovery of the toddler, he noticed a white 2007 to 2010 Nissan Altima or Maxima pull erratically into the parking lot, back up near the trash container, and dump what he thought was a bag of trash.

Gardena police later found surveillance video of a Nissan Altima leaving the carwash and released information to the public about the vehicle.

Ikeler, who owned such a car, was arrested a few days later following a tip to police.

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Jurors took about an hour Friday to find a Torrance man guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 2-year-old girl from a Gardena car wash, dismissing — and even laughing — at his story that an unidentified drug dealer named Flaco committed the crime.

Michael David Ikeler, 38, stared straight ahead, showing no reaction as a Torrance Superior Court clerk read the jury’s verdict, convicting him of one count of lewd act upon a child under the age of 14 and two counts of sexual penetration of a child under age 10...

Ikeler faces 40 years to life in prison when Judge Eric Taylor sentences him on March 1.

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A Torrance man was sentenced this week to 55 years to life in prison for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 2-year-old girl in 2015...

Ikeler also was ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, prosecutors said.

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