A serial rapist has been sentenced to 46 years in prison for sexually assaulting five women and two minors, including his own daughters, in Fresno County. Cesar Flores, 57, will be registered as a sex offender for life in the United States.
Judge James Kelly of Fresno County Superior Court handed down the sentence on Monday. Flores was arrested a year prior following a cold case investigation that brought five rape cases, occurring between 2016 and 2021, back into focus. Investigators identified Flores as a suspect using DNA from a distant female relative in another state. According to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, Flores did not know his female victims before the assaults and approached them in public.
At the time of his arrest, Flores faced 22 felony charges. He ultimately pleaded guilty last month to four felonies, including several counts of rape by force and forcible lewd acts upon a child. Four of the attacks occurred in the city's west and central areas, with a fifth taking place in the county's rural outskirts. Flores targeted victims while driving his car and brandished a knife. Court records indicate that in one instance, a victim escaped by jumping from his moving vehicle into an irrigation canal.
When Flores was arrested in 2025, his bail was set at $1.7 million, and he was facing a potential prison sentence of 264 years.