Camp’s Psychiatrist Held in Sex Inquiry : Arrest: James Harrington White, a consultant at facility near Convict Lake where three youngsters drowned, is accused of abusing a drugged patient.

The consulting psychiatrist for Camp O’Neal, the Sierra Nevada home for troubled youth central to the Convict Lake tragedy in which seven people drowned last month, was arrested Thursday in Newport Beach on suspicion of sexually abusing an adult patient.

Newport Beach Police also served search warrants at Dr. James Harrington White’s Newport Beach clinic, his Newport Beach home and his other residences in Palm Desert and Mammoth Lakes, near Camp O’Neal.

The arrest and warrants are based on a March 5 complaint to police by a male patient of White who alleged that the psychiatrist drugged him with prescription medicine then performed oral copulation on him.

According to police, the 29-year-old patient said he did not discover that he had been molested until he visited White’s Newport Beach home and found numerous photographs and videotapes of himself in various stages of undress being sexually abused by the psychiatrist.

The patient also told police that he saw pictures and videotapes of other unidentified men who appeared unconscious as White appeared to perform sex acts on them, police said.

White was arrested about 2 p.m. at his third-floor clinic in the 1400 block of Avocado Avenue in Newport Beach. Police investigators and two agents from the California Medical Board led him from his office in handcuffs.

White, 47, declined to comment. He was taken to Newport Beach City Jail, where he was being held in lieu of $500,000 bail on suspicion of committing oral copulation on a victim under the influence of an anesthetic substance. He faces up to eight years in prison if convicted. He is to be arraigned this morning in Orange County Harbor Municipal Court.

Police Sgt. Andy Gonis said that after White’s arrest three “juveniles” were found in his three-bedroom home in the Corona del Mar district of Newport Beach. Gonis said two of the juveniles were detained for “unrelated reasons,” while the third was questioned and released. Gonis said he did not know if the juveniles lived there or were visiting.

In addition to the criminal allegation, White faces possible suspension or revocation of his license for allegedly dispensing excessive drugs, according to state medical board officials. The officials said they are conducting their own investigation.

Police said the patient told them that White had been treating him for stress in connection with a back injury. The patient said White had given him enough tranquilizers that he would occasionally doze off. The patient told police he and White eventually became friends, and that he moved in with him last summer at White’s invitation.

While in White’s house recently, the patient told investigators, he discovered a locked tool box containing the photographs and videotapes. One of the pictures showed White performing the sexual act on him, police said.

White, in addition to serving for the last 18 months as the top medical professional at Camp O’Neal, was listed on state records as a director of the nonprofit company that runs the facility. Camp O’Neal treats delinquent and troubled teen-age boys.

A spokesman for Camp O’Neal expressed dismay upon learning of the arrest.

“If it is indeed true, the reaction is one of shock and amazement,” said Benjamin Epstein, a public relations consultant hired by Camp O’Neal after the drownings of three camp residents, two counselors and two other would-be rescuers when all seven broke through the ice at Convict Lake on Feb. 19.

Neither Bobbi Trott, executive director of the camp, nor her husband, Tim Christensen, who is on the facility’s board of directors and runs a for-profit school for camp residents was available for comment.

In January, White angrily denied accusations by state Department of Social Services officials that Camp O’Neal tranquilized youngsters against their will and possibly over medicated one patient who appeared lethargic.

“If the Department of Social Services seeks to determine how children should be medically treated,” White wrote to Trott, “then the people working for the (department) are guilty of practicing medicine without a license, which I believe is a criminal offense.”

Camp O’Neal has run into controversy frequently since it was transferred in 1987 from a county-run probation facility to private, nonprofit operation.

State licensing officials have said it has had “chronic problems,” including lack of proper supervision and failure to provide adequate clothing for the youngsters who are sent there by probation departments and social services agencies.

Camp officials have responded by accusing county officials of being overzealous.

White graduated in psychiatry from the University of Texas in Galveston in 1969, California medical records show. After interning in Texas and practicing briefly in Virginia, White moved to California and set up practices first in Huntington Beach and then Newport Beach, according to California Psychiatry Assn. records.

Carlton reported from Newport Beach, Hurst from Los Angeles.