Victims Testify to Shattered Lives : Maximum Sentence Urged for Confessed Child Molester

Three victims and the mothers of three victims of a Panorama City man who pleaded guilty to kidnaping and child molesting tearfully implored a judge Monday to sentence him to the maximum 44 years in prison.

The molester’s mother, in a tearful rejoinder, asked for leniency, describing her son as both a troubled child and an “exemplary son.”

More testimony is expected in Santa Monica Superior Court today in the sentencing hearing of Albert M. Alegrete, 34, who pleaded guilty to molesting five girls, ages 11 to 15, and kidnaping a sixth during 1981 and 1982.

Alegrete’s attorney said he intends to call as many as half a dozen more witnesses, including his client’s wife and brother and officials of his church. Their statements could delay the sentencing until Wednesday or later, according to the attorney, Robert Swanson.

‘Nightmare’ Described

In Monday’s dramatic hearing, Judge David Perez, who originally presided over the case while assigned to the San Fernando courthouse, showed no emotion as one witness after another tearfully described the damage done to their lives by the assaults.

“The nightmare will never go away for me,” the mother of one girl who flew with her daughter from Colorado for the hearing told the judge. “This man is sick. He should never be allowed out again to molest blameless little girls.”

Her daughter, who was 11 at the time of the molestation, told the judge that she became “paranoid” afterwards.

“He told me if I told anyone, he would come find me,” she said.

“I don’t think we’ll ever forget this,” the next teen-ager began. But she broke into tears and could not continue.

Request for Confrontation

Finally, a girl whose family helped catch Alegrete after a two-year search asked the judge to let her speak face to face with her molester so that she could tell him how he ruined her life.

She said through sobs that she had conducted the conversation many times but that each time she was only speaking “to the air.”

“I ask if it would be possible for me to talk to Mr. Alegrete in private so it won’t be just the air, so I can have my own peace,” she said.

Perez began to explain that he could not comply with her request when defense attorney Swanson said that he had talked to Alegrete about the request and that Alegrete would be willing to grant it.

Difficult Childhood

Alegrete sat through the hearing with his head buried in one hand and rarely looked at anyone, even when his mother, Diana Siegel, described his troubled upbringing.

Siegel said that, after she divorced Alegrete’s father, she sent her son to a foster home for two years, then remarried when he was 8. She said her second husband singled out Alegrete for punishment and ridicule, frequently calling him “fatty” and “porky.”

“Albert was very sensitive to this,” she said.

Siegel said Alegrete became an anorexic.

She said the molestations occurred over a short period in which he was under stress because of his in-laws, who she said were opposed to his marriage with their daughter, and because of his inability to find a job.

Otherwise, she said, he was “a loving son, a loving husband and a loving father,” she said. Alegrete is the father of two small children.

“He’s agonizing,” she added. “I know my son could never do this again.”

Alegrete was arrested two years ago, partly as a result of the exhaustive efforts of the family of one of his victims.

The girl, then 12, made sketches of the man who molested her and described the interior of his car.

Her parents went to car dealerships to determine the type of car he drove. Then the family began marathon vigils at schools, parks and freeway on-ramps from Ventura to Orange County.

“I didn’t have anything else to do,” her mother, a housewife, said in the hallway outside of court. She said she had decided to continue the search for 10 years if necessary.

Sighting at Elementary School

She told Perez on Monday that she finally saw the man outside the elementary school where he had picked her daughter up, telling the girl that he had a gun hidden under a towel and that he would shoot her.

The woman said she followed Alegrete for half an hour as he slowly turned back and forth in front of the school while children were leaving for the day.

According to a probation and sentencing report released Monday, Alegrete was already confessing his crimes at the time the woman saw him, but not to police.

Over the period of a year, Alegrete had been describing his crimes in increasing detail to pastors at the Grace Community Church of Northridge, where he was a member.

After unsuccessfully urging Alegrete to turn himself in, church officials contacted authorities through a member who was a retired policeman, the probation report said.

Church Member Assisted

The church member, without divulging Alegrete’s identity, compared notes with Los Angeles Police Detective Edward Evans, who had been working with the family in their search, the report said. Evans told the church member that he was already looking for Alegrete based on the family’s identification, the report said.

Church members told Alegrete that police knew his identity and were looking for him in connection with the one molestation, according to the report. Alegrete then turned himself in and confessed to other molestations that Evans was not aware of.

He was originally charged with multiple counts of forcible molestation for each girl and 32 counts of kidnaping. If he had been convicted of all counts, he could have been sentenced to about 200 years, Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda Greenberg said.

After a ruling that he was mentally competent to stand trial, Alegrete pleaded guilty to six of the counts, one for each girl.