No-Contest Plea Entered on 20 Molestation Charges : Sex crimes: Long Beach man had been a supervisor in the county Department of Children’s Services.

A former county Department of Children’s Services supervisor who had publicly questioned the moral taboos against sexual activity involving children pleaded no contest to 20 felony molestation charges Friday.

Gerald Davis, 55, of Long Beach, had been charged with sexually assaulting six boys and one girl ranging in age from 1 to 9 years old, including his grandchildren and neighbors’ children.

Davis’ stepson has also claimed that he was molested 20 years ago.

Davis, who is being held on $500,000 bail, could face several years in prison, officials said.

Davis entered his plea to 20 of 23 molestation charges just before a preliminary hearing was to begin to determine the weight of the evidence against him. The remaining three counts may be dismissed at sentencing, scheduled for Sept. 28 in Long Beach Superior Court.

Davis, a 28-year veteran social worker, who most recently worked as a supervisor at the department’s Belvedere office in East Los Angeles, was arrested July 10 at his Long Beach home and fired about a month later.

But the county agency was heavily criticized for failing to take action sooner, particularly after being made aware of letters Davis wrote to supervisors and other officials, saying that the county was too quick to brand sexual activity involving children as “abuse.”

“It is time to acknowledge that our norms for nonviolent, erotic experiences of young people in this society fail to reflect actual practice,” Davis wrote in a July 14, 1989, letter to county Supervisor Deane Dana.

“We need to begin to move away from criminal sanctions that seem to be based primarily on our need to punish irrationally the pleasure-seeking, loving drives of mankind,” Davis also wrote.

Many of the letters, also sent to judges, the governor and several newspapers, were forwarded to the Department of Children’s Services. But Davis was not fired until after his arrest.