Molester of 6 Is Sentenced to Maximum--44 Years

A Panorama City man who kidnaped and sexually molested six San Fernando Valley schoolgirls in five assaults during 1981 and 1982 was sentenced Wednesday to the maximum 44 years in state prison.

Albert M. Alegrete, 33, although active in his defense previously during the day, stood impassively as Santa Monica Superior Court Judge David D. Perez pronounced the sentence.

“It’s clear to the court that the acts were cruel, callous and calculating,” Perez said.

Perez turned aside Alegrete’s plea for a lighter sentence. The defendant testified for an hour and 20 minutes Wednesday, at one point asking one of the girls he had molested for forgiveness.

“Not for an excuse, but I didn’t know my state of mind at that time. . . . I was seeing things,” said Alegrete, who twice stopped during his testimony to bow his head and wipe his eyes. Alegrete said that, at the time of the molestations, he had hallucinations that made objects such as telephone poles and paper bags appear to be “mature, light-haired” women.

Alegrete was denied an insanity plea after five months of hearings on his mental competence. In February, he pleaded guilty to one charge of kidnaping and five charges of sexual assault, one of them involving two girls, in exchange for a reduction in the original 32 sex charges filed against him.

One of the victims, a Chatsworth resident who was 12 when she was molested, cried when the sentence was read.

“Now I can start to pick up the pieces,” she said outside the courtroom. She was surrounded by family members who had spent two years tracking down Alegrete, using the victim’s description of his face and car. Alegrete surrendered in March, 1984, three weeks after the family identified him as the man cruising in front of a Chatsworth elementary school

Mother’s Prayer

“I am sorry that he brought this on himself,” said the girl’s mother, who asked that her family not be named. “ . . . May God have mercy on him.”

In asking for a lighter sentence, Alegrete told Perez that he had become a “born-again” Christian shortly after his last attack on a 15-year-old girl in 1982. Alegrete’s wife, his pastor and a member of the church where Alegrete had taught a course titled “Fundamentals of Faith” said in court that Alegrete surrendered to police because he believed that it was God’s will.

The Rev. Richard A. Hines, pastor of the Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, said that he counseled Alegrete to surrender after Alegrete confessed some of his crimes to him in June, 1982.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda B. Greenberg urged Perez to impose the maximum sentence, saying that Alegrete had already avoided a potential 198-year sentence in his plea bargain. The sole point of Alegrete’s testimony was that “he was real sorry,” Greenberg told the judge.

“He has murdered the childhood of each and every one of these victims,” Greenberg said in closing arguments.

Alegrete confessed to forcing five girls, ranging in age from 11 to 15, into his car at different times with the threat of a hidden gun, then driving them to a remote spot and molesting them, Alegrete said. Alegrete also confessed to following a 9-year-old girl home, forcing his way inside and molesting her 12-year-old sister.

Alegrete will be eligible for parole in 22 years, Greenberg said.