Child-Care Aide Faces 7 Sex Counts
A 25-year-old Huntington Beach man who served as director of child-care supervision at the El Toro Marine School has been arrested on suspicion of child molestation, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said Tuesday.
Based on an investigation by the Sheriff’s Department and military authorities from the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, John Howard Nokes has been charged with seven counts of felony child molestation, according to a press release issued Tuesday by Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson.
A parent of one student at the El Toro Marine School in Santa Ana contacted the sheriff’s office on April 3 concerning allegations of sexual molestation of students, Olson said in the release.
A subsequent investigation by the sheriff’s office and special agents of the Naval Investigative Service at the El Toro Marine base led to Nokes’ arrest later the same day, Olson said. Nokes was released from Orange County Jail after posting $10,000 bail on April 4, and the district attorney’s office filed the seven felony charges 3 days later, on Friday, he said.
According to Olson, Nokes was a director of the YMCA program in charge of child-care supervision at the school.
Nokes could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
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