Molester in Day-Care Case Faces Year in Jail, Probation

John Howard Nokes, a former YWCA day-care center director, pleaded guilty Thursday to molesting nine boys in his care at facilities in East Irvine.

Nokes, 25, of Huntington Beach, faced up to 32 years in prison if he had been convicted on all 13 felony counts of child molestation. But the tentative agreement calls for a maximum sentence of a year in county jail and possibly five years’ probation.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Ariadne Symons, who said she did not wish to subpoena Nokes’ victims and “traumatize” them further by having them retell their experiences with Nokes, was satisfied with the agreement.

“He acknowledged that he has a problem,” Symons said. “And he admitted his guilt, and that’s important to me because frequently the testimony of the young boys as witnesses is (a) greater trauma on them than the crime itself.”

In addition, Nokes’ attorney, Marri Derby, an Orange County deputy public defender, said her client is in a counseling program.

“It’s also pretty clear that his probation is going to include an intense treatment program,” Derby said.

Probation for convicted felons of sex crimes routinely includes mandatory registration with local police departments, no contact with any of the children involved and no contact with anyone under the age of 18 without adult supervision, Derby said.

In Nokes’ case, a prison term was not appropriate, according to both sides. While Nokes pleaded guilty to fondling the boys, the molestations did not involve rape, oral copulation or sodomy, Symons said. In addition, Nokes’ defense attorney said that most of the molestations occurred while the children remained fully clothed.

The molestations took place while Nokes supervised children at El Toro Marine School in East Irvine. Despite the name, the school is not connected to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, but enrolls many children whose parents work at the air station.

Nokes was a director of a YWCA program in charge of child-care supervision at the school.

The molestations occurred from November, 1988, through April, 1989. Nokes was arrested April 3, after one of the parents contacted the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and reported the sexual molestations.

Defense attorney Derby said Nokes admitted to touching the boys, whose average age was 10. Two of the children said they were fondled underneath their clothing, while the others said they were fondled outside their clothes.

“He has always admitted his responsibility,” Symons said. “This is not a man who should go to jail for 32 years.”

Superior Court Judge Myron S. Brown has scheduled a Sept. 6 sentencing for Nokes.