Inside the creepy California lair where Cesar Chavez raped girls and women while living like a king

We are learning more about the creepy California lair where disgraced union titan Cesar Chavez raped girls and women while living like a king.

Chavez has been accused of sexually abusing multiple young girls and women, according to a shocking investigation from the New York Times.

Multiple women, two of whom said they were children, detailed accounts of when Chavez began sexually abusing them. The allegations have surfaced more than thirty years since the co-founder of the United Farm Workers labor union died in 1993.

Ana Murguia claimed the abuse started when she was just 13, while Debra Rojas said she was first assaulted at 12 and later raped at 15.

Murguia recalled that Chavez, 45, would call her house and asked to see her. She obliged, looking up to Chavez as “a hero.”

She describes in detail walking along the dirt trail that led to where he worked, his office, which she said was down a long corridor in the rundown building.

“He locked the door, as he always did when he called her, and told her how lonely he had been. He brought her onto the yoga mat that he often used in his office for meditation, kissed her and pulled her pants down. “Don’t tell anyone,” he told her afterward, the Times wrote. “They’d get jealous.”

Both women have described the horrific details of being sexually abused in Chavez’s California office. The name of his creepy headquarters is called Nuestra Senora Reina de La Paz, roughly translated to “Our Lady Queen of Peace.”

Chavez’s office is part of La Paz, the 187-acre property in the rural Kern county town of Keene, which sits up against the Tehachapi mountains foothills, about a 2-hour plus drive from Los Angeles. It is all part of the César E. Chávez National Monument. 

La Paz is a California State Park and included in the National monument that honors Chavez. The monument is managed by the National Park Service and is now the center of the bombshell allegations of rape against the revered labor leader.

The same office where the women alleged to have been sexually abused by Chavez has been “carefully preserved” and can be seen in the monument’s exhibit hall, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. 

Rojas described to the Times how Chavez began touching her and groping her breasts in the same office where he’s accused of raping Murguia.

The woman recalled that Chavez placed a gun on the nightstand before the assault, frightening her each time she glanced at it.

Both women described a pattern of grooming that began when they were as young as 8 or 9 years old.

“I didn’t know what the word grooming was,” Rojas told the Times, saying she was a virgin at the time of her rape. “It’s like you’re mesmerized.”

Their claims are supported by interviews, documents, and people they confided in over the years, according to the investigation.

In a stunning revelation, longtime activist Dolores Huerta — Chavez’s closest ally — also alleged he sexually assaulted her, a claim she had never previously made public.

She described an incident in 1966 and said she later bore two of his children, which she kept secret.

Huerta said she hid the pregnancies with loose clothing and ponchos, later giving birth to the girls and arranging for them to be raised by others.

“The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to,” she said in a statement after the investigation was made public. “The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”

Chavez is a historic figure in California, where he rocketed to fame fighting for labor rights for migrant farm workers. He has schools, roads and public buildings named after him in the state.

He has also been honored by presidents for his activism, most recently by Joe Biden, who placed a bronze bust of him in the Oval Office during his presidency.

In response to the allegations Chavez is being wiped off the face of the earth as iconic monuments are covered up and cities mull stripping his name off streets and buildings across the state. 

It comes one day after a wave of events honoring Chavez were pulled ahead of the Times article regarding the terrifying allegations about the civil rights leader.

The California Post has reached out to the state park and National Park Service for further comment about plans moving forward amid the rape allegations.

---

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters