TEMECULA, CA — A preliminary hearing was confirmed for Tuesday for a 62-year-old martial arts instructor accused of sexually assaulting three girls during lessons at his Temecula home.
Dzung Xuan Mai was arrested last month following a Riverside County Sheriff's Department investigation.
Mai is charged with nine counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old and multiple sentence-enhancing allegations of targeting more than one victim in sex crimes.
He appeared for a status hearing Thursday before Superior Court Judge Judith Clark, who conferred with the prosecution and defense regarding readiness to proceed with a preliminary hearing, which both sides acknowledged. The judge assigned the matter for further proceedings before Judge John Molloy at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta.
The hearing will determine whether there's sufficient evidence to warrant a trial.
The defendant is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the nearby Byrd Detention Center.
Court documents identified the alleged victims by their initials -- "J.H.," "J.W." and "R.M."
According to prosecutors, R.M. was the initial alleged target of Mai's abuse, beginning in August 2020 and continuing to August 2024. The circumstances behind the encounters were not specified, only referenced generally as instances in which the karate teacher allegedly put his hands on "certain parts" of the girl's body to gratify his "lust, passions and sexual desires."
J.H. and J.W. were possibly molested during lessons together with the defendant, court papers alleged. The criminal complaint indicated they were both allegedly abused between May 2024 and June of this year, under conditions analogous to those affecting R.M.
According to sheriff's Sgt. Mike Kelleher, deputies were informed on June 24 of an alleged assault on J.H., who had been taking a lesson that day at Mai's martial arts studio, located in his residence in the 31000 block of Iris Way, near Poppy Ridge Drive.
"Investigators learned that Mai had been teaching there for the past several years, instructing students between 5 and 19 years old," Kelleher said.
After gathering details on the alleged assault, a search warrant was procured and served at the defendant's property, where he was taken into custody without incident two days later.
Further investigation by the sheriff's Special Victims Unit led to the identification of the other two victims.
If convicted of one or more of the charges, the defendant could face 25 years to life in state prison.
He has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.
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