Took Nude Photographs of 2 Girls : Retiree Is Convicted of Molesting Child

A retired Lockheed engineer from North Hollywood known for giving candy to neighborhood children was convicted Wednesday of molesting a 9-year-old girl placed in his care and of taking nude photographs of her and his 5-year-old granddaughter.

A San Fernando Superior Court jury convicted Wallace W. Fisher, 69, of five counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and one count of taking lewd photographs of children with the intent to distribute them.

The jury acquitted Fisher of three counts of kidnaping with the intent to molest a child and one count of possessing obscene photographs with the intent to distribute them.

Jurors were unable to reach verdicts on two other charges that Fisher molested a 7-year-old girl and Judge Howard J. Schwab ordered them to return to court today to continue deliberations on those charges.

Fisher, who had been free on $35,000 bail, faces as much as 41 years in state prison for the convictions rendered Wednesday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Davis-Springer said. He was placed in County Jail after the verdict.

Fisher was arrested in January, 1985, after the 7-year-old told her mother that Fisher had molested her when she went in his house to throw away a candy wrapper.

During the trial, Davis-Springer showed jurors more than 70 photographs of two nude little girls. The pictures were found by detectives when they searched Fisher’s home and his personal collection of 20,000 to 30,000 photographs.

Witnesses testified that the 9-year-old’s mother frequently allowed her daughter to stay with Fisher and that the man had become a surrogate parent for the child. The girl testified that Fisher molested her in motels during trips they took in 1983.

Fisher testified that the girls had asked him to take their pictures. His attorney, Alfred A. Calabro, said that the children fabricated the accounts of being molested.