Former Youth Leader Gets Jail for Posing as Officer

A former Christian youth leader convicted of impersonating a policeman in an incident involving two prostitutes, which he called a prank, was sentenced Friday to 30 days in the Orange County Jail.

John Randolph Sykes, 35, was also sentenced to three years on probation after being found guilty on Feb. 26 of two misdemeanor counts of pretending to be a policeman.

The jury that convicted Sykes of the misdemeanors also found him not guilty of nine felony charges of raping and sodomizing two prostitutes whom he telephoned and persuaded to come to the Yorba Linda house of his vacationing parents in February, 1984.

Sykes admitted telling the two women, in separate incidents hours apart, that he was a policeman. He said he handcuffed them as a prank, but had sex with neither and let both go quickly.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jill Roberts, who urged Orange County Superior Judge Robert Fitzgerald to sentence Sykes to the maximum year in jail, said prank was “too benign a word” to describe Sykes’ actions.

She said the women were “victims of a terrorizing, false imprisonment. If they had been pillars of the community, the court wouldn’t hesitate to give him the maximum time possible.”

But Sykes’ attorney, Jennifer Keller, said she “thought it was a very fair disposition, and my client did also.”

“I know he felt the judge treated him very fairly and with understanding,” Keller said. “He has absolutely no complaints.”

Sykes testified at his trial that he had been affiliated with several churches in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and that he founded Youth in Action, an organization designed to instill Christian values in youth. After the trial, he said he did not expect to find work as a minister again.