Suspected Molester Seized in L.A. Court

A Westminster man, already accused in connection with a child pornography case in Los Angeles, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday on similar charges involving a 12-year-old Laguna Hills boy assigned to him through the Big Brother program, police said.

David Robert Negrette, 26, who is also a former Boy Scout leader, was arrested in Los Angeles Monday as he sat in a courtroom awaiting a hearing on charges he had molested a 16-year-old boy in Mexico, according to Huntington Beach Police Lt. Ed McErlain.

Los Angeles prosecutors claim that Negrette videotaped sexual acts with the Mexican boy in Ensenada as part of an operation that sold the videos in the United States.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Terry White said Negrette is reportedly shown in three pornographic films, which will be used as evidence in the trial scheduled to begin Oct. 20. Jerry Houchens, 45, of Santa Ana is also charged in the case.

Negrette was scheduled to be arraigned on the Orange County charges Wednesday in Municipal Court in Westminster, according to Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael C. Koski, but the hearing was postponed when Negrette’s transfer from Los Angeles was delayed. He is being held on $100,000 bail.

McErlain said police had been looking for Negrette for some time in connection with at least three alleged sexual encounters with the Laguna Hills boy between November, 1985, and July, 1986.

An arrest warrant was issued on July 20, charging Negrette with four counts of lewdly touching the body of a child under the age of 14 and one count of crimes against children, Koski said.

Police claim Negrette molested the boy, with whom he had been paired as a Big Brother, in his Springdale Street apartment in Huntington Beach.

Police said they began receiving information that Negrette was allegedly engaging in sex acts with children in Orange County after the Los Angeles case came to light, according to court documents filed in support of the arrest warrant.

Officials of the Big Brother/Big Sister organization told Huntington Beach investigators that they had dropped Negrette from the program in July, 1986, after being told about the alleged molestation by the boy’s parents, court records said.

Although the warrant was issued after the boy, now 15, told police he had been molested, detectives said they were unable to locate Negrette.

“We knew that he had an upcoming hearing” in Los Angeles, McErlain said. “We asked (Los Angeles prosecutors) that when he showed up in court to let us know.” On Monday, Deputy Dist Atty. White called Huntington Beach police, who arranged with Los Angeles officers to hold Negrette.

Police said that in interviews with the boy, they were told that during weekend visits Negrette took him to R-rated movies, showed him pornographic photographs and allowed him to call sexually explicit telephone message services.

White said he was unaware of the Orange County charges against Negrette until contacted by Huntington Beach authorities earlier this year.

White said the Los Angeles case against Negrette, Houchens and two others began in September, 1988, when police obtained a warrant to search the home of John Bauer, a former priest from Seattle. The tapes were discovered in the search.

Warrants have been issued for Bauer and another suspect in the case, White said, but the men are believed to be in Asia.