Deputy Guilty of 19 Counts of Child Molesting

A four-year Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was convicted Friday of 19 counts of child molestation involving repeated sexual attacks on five girls between the ages of 5 and 12 in 1984.

Thomas Taylor, 37, of Agoura Hills, faces a maximum 50-year prison term when he is sentenced Sept. 26 by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Judith Chirlin. The judge convicted Taylor after a non-jury trial that lasted 20 days.

Taylor’s wife, Kathy, 27, also was convicted by Chirlin of three counts of child endangerment, including a charge that she placed feces in her daughter’s mouth.

The pair were arrested in late 1984 after a 12-year-old victim told her mother that she had been fondled by Taylor and that she had learned of attacks by Taylor on his own 5-year-old daughter, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Morgan.

Citing the children’s accounts and corroborating testimony from a doctor, Chirlin convicted Taylor of charges that included lewd and lascivious conduct, sodomy and oral copulation.

Kathy Taylor, Chirlin said, “knew what was going on . . . and she had the obligation to do something about it.”

After his arrest, Taylor, who worked out of the Malibu sheriff’s station, was suspended.