Judge Hints at Long Sentence for 70-Year-Old Child Molester

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge indicated Tuesday that he will sentence an ailing 70-year-old Chatsworth man convicted of child molestation to a term long enough to keep him in prison for the rest of his life.

Alfred W. Bayley, who was castrated 39 years ago as punishment for a previous instance of child molestation, will receive a “healthy dose of time” in prison, Judge Michael A. Tynan said.

Tynan noted Bayley’s poor health, and said, “I don’t expect him to live through the experience. He isn’t going back on the streets.”

The judge made the remarks in response to a plea for a long sentence by a Northridge woman who said that in 1980 Bayley repeatedly molested her 8-year-old daughter. Bayley was baby-sitting the girl while the mother attended school.

Bayley, who attempted suicide with a drug overdose July 16 on the eve of his scheduled sentencing, was not in court Tuesday.

His attorney, Bruce M. Gleason, said Bayley was at the County-USC Medical Center jail ward and was too weak to appear.

Tynan rescheduled sentencing for Aug. 20 but permitted the victim’s mother to testify after being told it would be a hardship for her to attend future court sessions.

Bayley pleaded guilty April 2 to three counts of molesting three San Fernando Valley girls, ages 4, 7 and 8. If he receives the maximum sentence of 18 years in prison, Bayley would be eligible for parole in nine years.

Chose Castration

In 1946, Bayley chose castration--the surgical removal of the testicles--in lieu of jail after pleading guilty to child molestation in Pasadena Superior Court, Los Angeles police said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Weist said the long-discontinued practice of castration, once thought to suppress a man’s sex drive, is “nothing more than the ultimate in sterilization. It has no effect on sex drive, as Mr. Bayley’s case proves.”

Detective Douglas Varner said police have found eight children who were molested by Bayley in the past decade, adding, “There could be many more, and it could go back as far as 40 years.”

Varner said Bayley, a retired electrician with the Los Angeles Department of Airports, met most of his victims by responding to newspaper ads for baby-sitters.

“But others he molested were the children of family friends,” he said.

The mother who testified Tuesday said that Bayley “ensured my daughter’s silence by threatening to harm me and my mother.”