Man Who Pretended to Be Undercover Officer Admits Molesting Girls

A plumber who posed as an undercover police officer has pleaded guilty and faces a 24-year prison sentence for molesting four Palos Verdes Peninsula girls in two separate schoolyard incidents this year.

David Kelly Moyer, 23, of Harbor City admitted four counts of sexually molesting a minor in an appearance Wednesday in South Bay Municipal Court. Moyer’s guilty plea also constitutes a violation of his probation in a 1984 molestation case.

A plea bargain is expected to send Moyer to state prison for 24 years, less than the 60 years he could have received if the district attorney’s office had pressed additional allegations that all four molestations were forcible and that two resulted from a kidnaping.

Sentencing is scheduled Dec. 24 in Torrance Superior Court.

Prevent Additional Suffering

Prosecutors said they made the agreement to spare the girls the emotional trauma of testifying at a trial.

In the most recent case, Moyer admitted that he molested two 12-year-old girls Nov. 9 at Malaga Cove Intermediate School in Palos Verdes Estates. Police said Moyer told the girls that he was an undercover police officer and would arrest them for playing on the campus, which was closed for Veterans Day.

He used a similar ruse in February to molest two girls, now 12 and 13, at Rancho Vista Elementary School in Rolling Hills Estates.

Moyer was captured Nov. 19 when a police officer stopped him for a traffic violation and then recognized him as the scruffy, blond man described as the molester.

He was arrested while still on probation from an earlier molestation conviction. In that case Moyer was convicted of the January, 1984, sexual assault of two girls, ages 5 and 6, at his parents’ Rolling Hills home.