Jury to Get Sex Abuse Case Against Prosecutor

The case of a senior Los Angeles County deputy district attorney accused of sexually abusing his two daughters is to go to an Ontario Superior Court jury today, after the prosecutor and defense attorney on Wednesday presented dramatically different interpretations of the evidence.

In a closing argument that spanned two days, San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Ken Melikian told jurors they should find Harvey W. Harper, 50, guilty of all six felonies with which he is charged--two counts of attempted incest with his oldest daughter, who is now 21, and four counts of child molesting, more serious offenses, involving his younger daughter.

The incidents involving the elder daughter, who has been living with out-of-state relatives for nearly four years, allegedly occurred in October and November of 1981 while Harper was living in Rancho Cucamonga. The last four charges involve incidents that allegedly took place in the same home between September, 1982, and May, 1984. The younger girl, now 15, has been living in a foster home for more than a year.

“It is not pleasant when you have a person who is in a position of authority and who is a career prosecutor who has done something so disgusting and immoral, it is not pleasant at all,” Melikian told the jury. “But no person should be spared from justice merely because of their position.”

Melikian said jurors have every reason to believe the testimony of the two daughters and of Harper’s estranged second wife, who said she witnessed between 10 and 15 acts of sexual abuse involving the younger girl. Melikian accused Harper and his eldest son, Geoffrey, 23, a U.S. Army paratrooper, of lying on the witness stand.

However, Harper’s attorney, Philip Kassel, told jurors they should draw a different conclusion.

“I ask you to consider that a person who leads the good life, who leads the life Mr. Harper has . . . is not the kind of person who is going to be running around molesting children,” he said.

Of the attempted incest charges, Kassel added, “If, in fact, my client was the kind of animal that the district attorney portrayed . . . then he would have, in fact, accomplished this act.”

Judge Clifton L. Allen instructed the jury Wednesday and ordered them to begin deliberations today.

In more than a day on the witness stand, Harper, a 20-year veteran of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, had denied that he ever had sexual contact with either of his daughters. Until his suspension in October, 1984, Harper was in charge of the unit that prosecutes parents for failing to make child support payments.

Kassel told jurors that Harper’s elder daughter fabricated her story because she had grown to hate her father, largely because he had separated from her mother, Carol Harper, and had been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The mother, the first Mrs. Harper, died in February, 1982. The elder daughter also was angered because her father failed to give her the money and the automobile she wanted and insisted that she find a part-time job, Kassel said.

The younger daughter, the defense attorney argued, was pressured into lying about the alleged molestations by her stepmother, Harper’s second wife, whom Harper married in August, 1983. The stepmother, Carrie Harper, went to authorities only after Harper had told her he wanted to end their year-old marriage, Kassel said. Carrie Harper pressured the girl into filing the complaint to ensure that she, the stepmother, would be given custody of the younger daughter, the attorney argued.

Kassel noted that both Carrie Harper and the younger daughter retracted their statements soon after they made the original complaint. During Harper’s preliminary hearing, they denied that any molestation had occurred. However, both subsequently changed their minds and testified for the prosecution at Harper’s trial, which began last Oct. 30.

If convicted, Harper could face up to 14 years and eight months in state prison, Melikian said. He has been free on $25,000 bail since shortly after he was charged with the crimes in November, 1984.