A San Diego man convicted of having sexually explicit photos of young children on his cellphone, many of them clients at a day care operated by his ex-wife, has been sentenced to decades in prison.
Rancho Bernardo resident Abdullah Sediqi, 66, has pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including five counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and two counts of invasion of privacy (recording under the clothing of another).
He was originally pleaded not guilty to 13 charges. On Thursday, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
At previous court appearances, graphic details of the crimes he's accused of were revealed.
"A third victim, he was laying on his bare chest in clearly what is his bedroom, and clearly at one point, he is kissing her," said Deputy District Attorney Claudia Grasso. "A fourth victim, again he has her posed with her little shirt over her head and the camera is focusing on her chest and abdomen."
The alleged victims are children currently or formerly enrolled at the Kid's Castle Day Care on Matinal Road, a Rancho Bernardo business owned and operated by Sediqi’s ex-wife, Katrien Sediqi. Police said Sediqi was living in the house where the day care is operated. The daycare has since been suspended.
Sediqi is also accused of taking up-skirt photographs of women as they shopped at the Valley Thrift Store on East Valley Parkway in Escondido.
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Police said Sediqi was first arrested on June 13, 2015 after a woman shopping at the Valley Thrift Store noticed the suspect crouched down closely behind her with his cellphone in hand.
The woman moved away from him and then saw Sediqi approach another woman shopping at the store. Sediqi then allegedly crouched down low to take a photograph under the woman’s clothing, police said.
The witness called police and officers arrived at the store to speak with the suspect.
Officers discovered Sediqi had used his phone to snap several photos underneath the clothing of unsuspecting women in the store, two of whom were minors. The up-skirt images were taken from at least two separate locations, police said.
Sediqi was arrested at the scene and booked in the Vista Detention Facility. He posted bail and was released.
As part of the investigation, police said Sediqi’s phone was forensically analyzed by an Escondido Police detective with the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
The detective found that Sediqi’s phone contained more than 6,000 photographs, and while most were innocuous, they found more than up-skirt shots.
Many of the pictures were “very graphic and disturbing,” images of children, Escondido Police Chief Craig Carter said during a news conference Thursday morning. Some of the girls in the photos appeared to be as young as three to five years old -- many from Katrien's day care.
Further investigation revealed that many of the children in those disturbing photographs were kids that attend Kid’s Castle Day Care on Matinal Road, a Rancho Bernardo business owned and operated by Sediqi’s ex-wife, Katrien Sediqi. The day care also goes by the name of Sediqi Family Day Care.
The EPD said detectives served a search warrant on the Sediqi home and day care facility and seized all records of current clients of the business. More phones, computers and external hard drives were also taken from the home by investigators.
The police department said officers contacted the parents of every child who is a current client of Kid’s Castle Day Care and alerted them of Sediqi’s arrest.
