Ex-School Trustee Pleads Guilty to Molesting Minor

Richard Merle Boucher, the former Huntington Beach school board trustee who resigned last month after being charged with two counts of sexual molestation of a minor, pleaded guilty to one count and no contest to the other Wednesday in West Orange County Municipal Court.

Judge Marvin G. Weeks ordered Boucher, 61, to appear in Superior Court on April 20 to enter his pleas again and receive a sentencing date.

Outside the courtroom, Boucher’s attorney, Bruce E. Colodny, said his client had “great remorse for his wrongful conduct.”

“My client’s change of pleas is also intended to spare the victims the further ordeal and trauma of testifying as witnesses at trial,” Colodny read from a prepared statement. Boucher declined to comment.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael C. Koski said he believed that Boucher was “too embarrassed to go ahead with a public trial.”

A preliminary hearing had been scheduled for Wednesday for Boucher after he pleaded not guilty March 16 to a felony count of oral copulation with a minor in 1984 and a misdemeanor count of child molestation in November, 1986.

Boucher faces a maximum of three years in state prison for the felony count to which he pleaded guilty, and up to one year in county jail for the misdemeanor, Koski said. He also must register in the state as a sex offender, Weeks said during the court hearing.

According to Koski, Boucher had had sexual encounters with an unidentified neighborhood youth over a period of years. It was only after the youth entered a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic for treatment in February and told counselors that he had been molested for years that police questioned and subsequently arrested Boucher, Koski said.

Because of a three-year statute of limitation, the complaint against Boucher focused on a three-month period from March to June of 1984, Koski said.

The incident resulting in the misdemeanor charge involved a different neighborhood boy, Koski said.

Boucher was elected to the Huntington Beach City School District board in November, 1985. In his resignation letter, he said he did not want to bring any more “shame” to the school district and also blamed the news media for treating him unfairly.

“It appears that I am being tried by the newspapers rather than by a court of law that is every citizen’s inherent right,” he wrote.

In 1983, the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce chose Boucher as its Citizen of the Year. He was involved in scouting for 45 years.