Man Accepts Plea Bargain in Molestation Case

A former Palmdale City Council candidate whose trial last year on two counts of child molestation ended in a mistrial pleaded guilty Thursday to two reduced charges and was sentenced to three years probation.

Prosecutors offered to let Richard Burriss plead guilty to misdemeanor battery charges after San Fernando Superior Court Judge John H. Major excluded evidence prosecutors said was critical to proving in a second trial that Burriss intended to be lewd when he touched two neighbor girls on Jan. 30, 1988. The evidence was to be introduced in a trial that was set to start Thursday.

Burriss, a community activist who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 1986 and had filed papers to run again in 1988, was charged with molesting the girls, 5 and 6, while they were playing at his house with his children.

Burriss, who had no record of child molestation, said Thursday that authorities misinterpreted innocent games, and said he is the victim of hysteria fueled by the McMartin child molestation case. He said he pleaded guilty to the reduced charges to avoid a second trial.

“Parents beware: Hug a child, go to jail,” Burriss said bitterly after the proceedings. “Society used to say to men that they should be compassionate and take an active interest in their children’s lives. Look what happens.”

Jurors in the first trial voted 9 to 3 to acquit him on one count and 8 to 4 to acquit on a second count. Later, they said they believed the children’s stories but were not convinced that Burriss intended to be lewd when touching the children, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert B. Foltz Jr.

Foltz said prosecutors had hoped in the second trial to introduce testimony from parents of other children who had come forward with additional allegations of misconduct with children by Burriss.

Major, however, ruled the allegations could not be discussed in the trial because Burriss was not charged with the offenses. Foltz said prosecutors offered Burriss the plea agreement because, without the excluded evidence, they could not prove Burriss intended to be lewd.