Six Youths Make Plea Bargain, Admit to Sexual Battery of Junior High Girls : Courts: The boys, ages 12 and 13, could face terms in the California Youth Authority of up to four years. A seventh suspect has not yet entered a plea.

Six of seven boys suspected in the molestation of three teen-age girls at an Encinitas junior high school have pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor counts of sexual battery in a plea bargain with the district attorney’s office.

The boys, 12 and 13 years old, had originally been charged with felony child molestation in the March 28 incident. The group of boys the school had encircled three female Oak Crest Junior High school students and began taunting them and grabbing at them. Five of the boys were students at the school.

The incident occurred at the school’s locker compound after school hours as the girls were leaving an audition for a school play. Partly in response to the incident, the San Dieguito Union High School District last month applied for a $60,000 grant to hire a sheriff’s deputy to patrol the area near Oak Crest and three other schools.

Two of the six boys pleaded guilty to charges of felony sexual battery and the other four pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual battery, which can lead to terms in the California Youth Authority of up to four years and one year, respectively, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Leo Valentine.

“Based upon the evidence that we would have to try the cases, there is more of an identification of those two individuals (who pleaded guilty to felonies) and there are stronger allegations as to the part that they played in the incident,” Valentine said.

The seventh boy involved in the incident has not yet entered a plea and faces charges of both child molestation and sexual battery in a trial set for next month.

Valentine stressed that judgments against the boys may not be as harsh as punishments reserved for adults for the same crime.

“Juvenile law is for rehabilitative purposes. Many times, what would happen to an adult would not happen to a minor,” Valentine said.

“The purpose is not to punish that behavior, but rather to correct the behavior,” he said.

A disposition hearing for the six boys is scheduled for May 29.

The court also ordered psychological evaluations for four of the boys and asked for reviews of the defendants’ immigration status. If it is shown that the boys are in the country illegally, they may be transferred to the juvenile system in Mexico through the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Valentine said.