Child Molester Sentenced to Maximum Prison Term

A child molester considered such a risk that police officers and sheriff’s deputies tracked him after he was paroled last April was sentenced Monday to the maximum six years and eight months in state prison for masturbating next to a schoolyard and in an alley.

Joseph Wells Noble, 34, who has been convicted of sex crimes against children three times since 1978, hung his head throughout the hearing and remained silent as Long Beach Superior Court Judge Sheila F. Pokras sentenced him.

A jury convicted Noble last month of two counts of felony indecent exposure, in the alley behind a Long Beach apartment building and in a car in front of a Studio City elementary school. Although indecent exposure is usually considered a misdemeanor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Julie Sulman filed the charges as felonies because of Noble’s previous convictions.

Both crimes occurred in May, fewer than six weeks after Noble was paroled from prison. Law enforcement authorities were so sure he would once again threaten children after his release that they joined forces in an unusual surveillance operation that involved 40 undercover officers as well as helicopters and electronic tracking devices.

While being watched by detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and three South Bay police departments, Noble visited dozens of schoolyards and parks in violation of his parole.

In an effort to put him behind bars as long as possible, authorities waited until a detective saw Noble masturbating in his car in front of the schoolyard before arresting him. Later, a woman told authorities she and her son saw Noble masturbating in the alley.

Noble’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Steve McManus, argued for a lesser sentence, pointing out that Noble’s recent crimes were less serious than his previous ones. He also said the sentence would be appealed.

Sulman disagreed with a suggestion from McManus that Noble could be rehabilitated. In a statement to police officers in 1978, Noble compared himself to a heroin addict, incapable of controlling his urges when in the presence of young girls, she said. “Locking up isn’t going to cure me. There’s no cure short of death,” she quoted Noble as saying.

Noble, who was credited with 290 days for time served, could cut his remaining six-year sentence in half if he works in prison as he has in the past, she said.

Noble, whose paroles to his parents’ Hawthorne home sparked public outcries in 1988 and this year, has spent most of his adult life in state prison. He has been convicted of a range of sex crimes, from oral copulation with a 7-year-old girl to soliciting sex from a minor.