SAN DIEGO -- A former YMCA day-care worker was convicted Wednesday of molesting three 7-year-old girls attending day camp at a school in Chula Vista.

Daniel Meraz faces 45 years to life in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 27 by Judge Raymond Edwards Jr.

Deputy District Attorney Lucille Weismantel said Meraz was found guilty of eight counts of child molestation.

Jurors also found true a special allegation of multiple victims, the prosecutor said.

Meraz, 25, was acquitted of charges involving a fourth kindergarten-age girl, Weismantel said.

She said the molestations occurred between July 2002 and March 2003 at Arroyo Vista Charter School.

An investigation was launched after one victim told her mother in April 2003 that "Mr. Danny" had touched her inappropriately, the prosecutor said.

During the trial, Weismantel told the jury that Meraz was a "wolf in sheep's clothing" who took advantage of the victims as they sat on his lap during nap time.

But defense attorney Kerry Armstrong said the girls came forward only after gossip spread at the school.

There were too many inconsistencies in the girls' stories for them to be true, Armstrong told the jury.