The State - News from Sept. 15, 1989

Stockton developer Eckhard Schmitz, who fled the United States in 1984 to avoid a prison term for molesting teen-age boys, has been arrested in West Germany. Schmitz, 44, was being held in Dusseldorf on a provisional arrest warrant pending extradition proceedings. An attempt to extradite him from Spain in 1987 failed when a judge there ruled that his crimes in the United States might not necessarily be considered crimes in Spain. Under Spanish law, a defendant can avoid prosecution by arguing successfully that the people with whom he engaged in sex were over 12 and participated willingly.