A registered sex offender from Perris pleaded guilty to molesting a girl near Chaparral High School in Temecula and groping a woman at a nearby mall.
Jacob Brian Paulsen, 31, entered the plea Wednesday, Oct. 7, under a pretrial agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney's Office. He admitted to five counts: lewd acts on a minor, sexual battery, child endangerment, attempted lewd acts on a minor and annoying an underage victim. No charges were dismissed, according to Patch, which first reported the plea.
Superior Court Judge John Molloy scheduled sentencing for Wednesday, Dec. 16, at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta. Court minutes did not stipulate a prospective sentence.
Paulsen is being held on $1 million bail at the Smith Correctional Facility.
Both incidents occurred on Sept. 19, 2025, in Temecula. Riverside County Sheriff's Sgt. Miguel Santos told City News Service that "deputies were alerted to a sexual assault involving a girl in the 40000 block of Winchester Road, in the immediate vicinity of Chaparral High School." The alert came shortly after 5 p.m. that day.
The circumstances of the encounter between Paulsen and the juvenile were not disclosed. He was arrested hours later.
During the investigation, Santos said, deputies discovered Paulsen had also groped a woman at a shopping mall in the 20000 block of Ynez Road, near County Center Drive, hours before the Winchester Road assault. The two locations are less than two miles apart.
No one was injured in either assault, according to the sheriff's department. Deputies located Paulsen in the area and arrested him without incident.
Paulsen is a registered sex offender with prior convictions for assault with intent to commit a sexual offense, sexual battery and contacting a minor to commit a sexual offense, according to the California Department of Justice. He served three years in state prison and was released in the spring of 2025.
The Riverside County District Attorney's Office has not publicly commented on the terms of the pretrial agreement. No statement from Paulsen's defense attorney appeared in public records as of publication.
