Loitering Near Schools Gets Convicted Child Molester 2 More Years

A convicted child molester whose every step was followed by undercover police officers during a three-week surveillance operation was sentenced on Monday to two years in jail for loitering around schoolyards.

Leonard James McSherry’s attorney condemned the sentence as excessive and said his client was being improperly forced to pay for his prior convictions.

But in the Long Beach Police Department’s exploited children’s unit, the tough sentence was regarded as vindication of an unusual strategy.

Police had been so convinced that McSherry would molest another child that they assigned from one to four undercover police cars to tail the 35-year-old Lakewood man for 22 days late last year.

In Frustration, Police Finally Move

They said they watched him drive to and stop at more than 40 schools. However, only rarely did McSherry get out of his car, and while he occasionally motioned to a child or walked toward children in an alley, he did nothing suspicious enough to justify an arrest on suspicion of molestation.

In frustration, police finally arrested McSherry on suspicion of loitering--technically, lingering near schoolyards with intent to commit a crime.

That was enough for a Long Beach Municipal Court jury, which convicted McSherry on five counts Friday, and for Judge Michael Nott, who imposed the sentence--six months short of the maximum.

Deputy Public Defender William Rafael, who defended McSherry, said his client had done nothing to justify an arrest, but had no chance of acquittal once Nott rejected a defense motion to exclude his criminal record from the evidence.

During the last 15 years, McSherry had been arrested and prosecuted half a dozen times for crimes ranging from indecent exposure to child molestation to the kidnaping of a 15-year-old girl in Long Beach.

He was last released from prison in late 1984, after serving four years for that 1979 kidnaping. Police said that crime had occurred shortly after McSherry was released from prison after serving four years for molesting a 9-year-old Long Beach girl in 1974.

Once jurors were told that they should consider McSherry’s previous convictions when evaluating his state of mind as he stopped at schoolyards, the defendant “was dead in the water,” Rafael said. “I don’t think he could get a fair trial anywhere.”

Police said they thought they “had to do something,” in the words of one member of the exploited children’s unit, to get McSherry off the street.

They said they began receiving telephone calls late last year indicating that McSherry had been spotted prowling around schoolyards in Long Beach, Lakewood and other nearby communities.

Reported by Principals

Several school principals reported that the man was driving a red pickup truck, and the license on the vehicle led investigators to McSherry, police said .

In March, McSherry pleaded guilty to two of the five loitering counts as part of an anticipated plea-bargain that would have allowed him to be placed on probation. A condition of the sentence would have prohibited him from approaching schoolyards, meaning he would likely be jailed the next time he was spotted near a school.

But, according to Rafael, the deal fell through when the county probation department suggested that it include six months in jail.

McSherry was allowed to withdraw his plea and go to trial. He was convicted after four days of testimony and two hours of jury deliberation.

McSherry, who had been free on $25,000 bail, was taken into custody immediately after sentencing. He quickly filed a notice of appeal.

Rafael criticized the judge for raising McSherry’s bail to $100,000 after the sentencing.

“That’s excessive considering these were misdemeanor crimes against school orders, not against individuals,” he said. “There were no victims, so to speak.”