Life sentence possible for youth worker

Deepa Bharath

NEWPORT BEACH -- A 31-year-old city employee charged with lewd conduct

involving several children who participated in city programs could face

life in prison if convicted, officials said Friday.

The Orange County district attorney has charged Trenton Michael Veches

with seven counts of lewd conduct with children. He also faces a special

one-strike enhancement on each of those charges, which, if proved, can

send him to prison for life without eligibility for parole for at least

25 years.

Veches is suspected of engaging in inappropriate behavior with at

least 47 boys between ages 6 and 10. Police recovered hundreds of digital

images from his personal computer, some of which showed Veches sucking

the boys’ toes.

He was arrested April 17 after a co-worker reported the alleged

criminal activity, police said.

More charges may be filed if more victims come forward, said Tori

Richards, spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney.

“We’re always open to that possibility,” she said.

A pretrial hearing for Veches scheduled for Friday was postponed to

June 7. He was arraigned April 19, when he pleaded not guilty to the

charges.

Veches is being held in Orange County Jail in lieu of a $250,000 bail.

The city held a special meeting Thursday night for parents of children

who had participated in after-school and summer programs supervised by

Veches over the last two years.

The meeting, closed to the press and public, drew at least 65 to 70

parents and went on for about 2 1/2 hours, City Manager Homer Bludau

said.

“We had a lot of participation from parents,” Bludau said. “They had a

lot of questions about the investigation.”

The city had also brought in three child and family advocates to

answer questions and address concerns, he said.

“They talked about what would happen if the case went to trial and if

children will be asked to testify,” Bludau said. “They also talked about

how to engage your child in a conversation, how to talk about the issue.”

He said the city will make resources and information available even to

parents who did not attend the meeting. The city had sent out invitations

to 900 households, based on children -- both boys and girls -- who had

attended the programs supervised by Veches over the last two years.

In this case, parents had no way of knowing what had happened with

their children, said Shirley Campisi-Mangio, a victim advocate for

Community Service Program, a local nonprofit agency. She was one of the

speakers at the meeting.

“Parents should look for signs in their children,” she said. “If

they’re normally energetic and suddenly withdraw or turn glum, for

example, that’s a sign that something is wrong.”

She said parents, in such sensitive situations, should sit their

children down and tell them they love them no matter what.

“The children need to know they’re not at fault,” Campisi-Mangio said.

“That’s something that needs to be repeatedly communicated to them.”

She said she is working with the city to get parents and children into

counseling as soon as possible. Counseling will be available even to

families who were not victims, she said.

Councilman John Heffernan, who had his younger son in one of the

programs around the time Veches took charge, said the meeting was charged

with unspeakable anguish, pain and emotion.

“It’s hard to put into words the emotion I felt from these parents,”

he said.

Heffernan said he learned a lot -- not only from the experts, but

parents of the victims who were candid about how their children told them

about the alleged abuse.

“You clearly knew how deeply the parents were affected by it,” he

said. “It was just very emotional.”

* Deepa Bharath covers public safety and courts. She may be reached at

(949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at o7 deepa.bharath@latimes.comf7 .