Teen Sentenced in Molestation Case at Elementary School

A 15-year-old girl who molested two Camarillo elementary school children was sentenced Tuesday to at least 4 1/2 years at a local youth detention facility, the prosecutor in the case said.

The diminutive, pigtailed teenager will be held at the California Youth Authority facility in Camarillo, where she will be kept away from those who could molest her or who she could molest, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Donna Thonis. She will also undergo counseling.

She will be eligible for parole in 4 1/2 years, but she could remain in custody until she is 21, Thonis said. She also must register as a sex offender for the rest of her life, Thonis said.

Parents of the first victim--a kindergartner at Camarillo Heights Elementary School--said they were satisfied with the sentence and with Ventura Superior Court Judge Charles Campbell’s handling of the case.

And even as they labor to help their own daughter recover from the traumatic event, they expressed compassion for the teenager.

“All I can say is that she has had a terrible, terrible, horrific childhood,” the victim’s father said.

The teenager, who sat with her shackled feet dangling from her chair, appeared alone with her attorney at the hearing, which was closed to all but family members of the victims.

She was made a ward of the court Tuesday after her mother left the state the day before, Thonis said.

In an April 15 hearing, the Juvenile Court sustained the allegations against the minor, which charged her with six counts of lewd acts on a child in connection with the two incidents.

The school principal would not comment on how the teenager got onto campus, but the victim’s parents say she posed as a class aide for the kindergarten class.

There, she lured the victim into a puppet theater in the classroom and then to the bathroom, where she pinned her to the floor and aggressively “fondled and kissed her,” the victim’s parents said.

The 5-year-old experienced vaginal bleeding and, during a hospital exam the next day, blood was discovered in her urine, her mother said.

Their daughter continues to see a therapist, has changed schools three times and had to be toilet trained again, her parents said.

In addition to the criminal case, the parents of the youngest victim are suing the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District.

In their lawsuit, the parents allege that school officials failed to notice that the then-14-year-old suspect posed as a sixth-grade student aide for several days last year in a Camarillo Heights kindergarten class and that the kindergartner was molested twice by the teenager April 1. The trial in the civil suit is scheduled for September.

The suspect was placed on informal probation without trial after the first case.

The second victim, a 9-year-old girl, was molested March 12, apparently after being invited to skip school and go to the molester’s house.

The parents continue to wonder why a Juvenile Court judge let her go with only informal probation.

“It is inconceivable that they would put other children at risk, to cover up,” her father said. “That is just disgusting. We are outraged.”