Former Coach Told to Serve 1987 Sentence

More than four years after he pleaded guilty to violating federal child pornography laws, a former Orange County youth football coach was ordered Friday to report to a halfway house next month to begin serving a sentence handed down in 1987.

At a hearing in Los Angeles, U.S. District Judge William J. Rea ordered George Franklin Milledge, 50, to begin a 90-day stay at a halfway house starting June 18. Milledge, of Chino, was sentenced to serve time in the halfway house and then spend three years on probation after pleading guilty to one count of possessing child pornography in January, 1987.

The former Placentia resident was allowed to postpone the start of his time when he suffered a massive heart attack soon after the 1987 sentencing, according to his attorney, Elliott Gayer.

Gayer said his client was told at the time that the probation office would contact him after his release from the hospital. But Milledge received no word until April 17 of this year.

“This is kind of strange,” Gayer said. “The man gets sentenced in 1987--what takes them four years to get him into the system? It’s like somebody found a file on a desk.”

But Gayer said neither he nor his client had any objection to the scheduled start date, although Milledge continues to suffer from a heart condition. Gayer said Friday’s hearing was scheduled after a mild heart attack forced Milledge to miss the original date last week.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Kimberly Dunn could not be reached for comment.

Milledge was indicted by a federal grand jury at the end of 1986 on three counts of violating the federal Child Protection Act after a raid on his Placentia home yielded a cache of pornographic material featuring young boys and girls in sexually explicit poses. U.S. postal inspectors and U.S. Customs Service agents seized a briefcase filled with books, magazines, films and videotapes.

The indictment accused Milledge of mailing or transporting child pornography from Florida and from as far away as Denmark and Sweden.

Milledge, a former Orange County youth football coach and referee, at first pleaded innocent to the charges. He later agreed to plead guilty to one count and was fined $1,000 in addition to his halfway house and probation sentence.