Rohnert Park man who terrorized adopted children gets multiple life sentences
A Rohnert Park man who adopted three children and then locked them away in a house and sexually abused them for years has been given six consecutive sentences of life without the possibility of parole for his crimes, the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office said Tuesday.
Jose Centeno, 57, was also given three consecutive life sentences, and an additional 39 years in the California Department of Corrections after being found guilty in July of three counts of kidnapping for financial gain, three counts of torture, and nine counts involving the sexual abuse of a child.
In 2006, Jose and Gina Centeno adopted three young siblings who were only 2, 3, and 4 years old.
In 2010, all three children were enrolled at John Reed Elementary School.
However, following a report to Sonoma County Child Protective Services by a staff member at the school regarding suspicion of physical abuse, the Centenos pulled all three children from school, prosecutors said. The Centenos then hid the three children in captivity, telling their extended family that they had been given back to the state.
By 2012, other closer family members in the Rohnert Park area had stopped seeing the oldest of the three children, Kaya, and were told Kaya had been sent away, the District Attorney's Office said. When family also stopped seeing the other two children, they were told all the kids had been "sent away."
According to prosecutors, the kids were actually still in the home, locked in an upstairs bedroom behind a boarded up window and chained to their beds. During the isolation and abuse, the oldest of the siblings, Kaya, lost consciousness. Kaya's siblings were told she had been sent away, and they never saw or heard from her again. To this day, she has not been found.
For one of the two remaining children, the only time she would leave the room was when Jose Centeno would unchain her, take her to another room in the house, and sexually assault her.
"That sexual abuse continued for years," said the District Attorney's Office.
Although the Centenos hid the existence of the three adopted children from family, friends, and neighbors, they still collected money from the Adoption Assistance Program and received hundreds of dollars from the state each month.
In late 2018 or early 2019, Jose Centeno took the two remaining children to Mexico, where he left them with family. Once there, the children started to tell people what had happened to them in Rohnert Park.
In July of 2020, Mexico Child Protective Services alerted Sonoma County Child Protective Services about the reports of abuse. The children were brought back to California, and a criminal investigation began, which led to the arrests of Jose and Gina Centeno in August 2020.
Gina Centeno was charged in this case as well, prosecutors said, but she passed away before trial.
"While appropriate that Mr. Centeno will be spending the rest of his life in prison, our two brave victims are still missing their sister Kaya," said District Attorney Carla Rodriguez in a statement Tuesday. "Though justice has absolutely been served in this case, Kaya will always be in our thoughts."
A link to Kaya Centeno's missing person page on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children can be found here https://www.missingkids.org/poster/NCMC/1399066/1.
Based on witness statements, the best estimate as to when she disappeared is sometime in 2012. She was 10 years old. If anyone has any information to provide, please contact the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety at (707) 584-2630.