Ex-Officer Sentenced for Molesting 5 Children

A former Los Angeles police officer was sentenced to eight months in jail Thursday on charges he sexually molested five neighborhood children over a 21-month period in 1986 and 1987.

Judge Luis A. Cardenas in Orange County West Superior Court told Charles Oakley that he must serve time in jail “to reassure the community” that sexual crimes against children will not go unpunished.

The parents of the five children who were molested by Oakley had pleaded with Cardenas to order Oakley to jail. Oakley, of Cypress, served 20 years on the Los Angeles Police Department.

“I wish I didn’t have to send you to jail,” the judge said. “But I’m not going to give you any less than anyone else just because you are a policeman. Police officers are to be trusted, and this tears the very fabric of that trust.”

In addition to the eight-month jail term, which Oakley will not begin serving until late September, Cardenas ordered five years’ probation. During his probation, Oakley may not be in the company of any minor children other than his own unless there are other adults present, the judge said.

Oakley, who is married and the father of two children, also must pay for counseling fees that the victims’ families have incurred.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael C. Koski, who prosecuted the case, said Oakley molested the five children, ages 8 to 10, between January, 1986, and October, 1987. Oakley was arrested last December after the children made “certain remarks” to teachers at school, Koski said.