Suspect in Abduction of Girl Must Stand Trial

Even though the 6-year-old alleged victim has been deemed incompetent to provide testimony, a Vista Municipal Court judge Thursday ordered a 24-year-old Oceanside man to stand trial on charges that he kidnaped and sexually molested the girl.

The suspect, Douglas Dannat, was arrested Dec. 15 by a San Diego County sheriff’s deputy who heard a police broadcast of the girl’s alleged abduction after it was immediately reported by the family and, on a hunch, staked himself alongside California 76, north of the girl’s home, where he saw the suspect’s vehicle drive by.

Deputy Nelson Prosper arrested Dannat on the spot, as the girl cried out, “I want my father!” officials said.

The 6-year-old was called to the witness stand Wednesday to describe her experience, but the prosecutor cut his questioning short and, on Thursday, asked that the testimony be stricken because the girl was unable to remember the events of that day.

When Deputy Dist. Atty. Douglas Gregg asked the girl if she had been kidnaped or touched in a “bad” way, the youngster repeatedly answered, “No.” Striving to find an answer to which she would presumably offer a “yes,” Gregg asked the girl if her mother was a “nice person.” “No,” she said again.

Gregg said later that the girl was too traumatized to provide clear testimony, and instead he relied on the word of a sheriff’s child-abuse detective, Ed Pollock, who interviewed the girl three times after the incident.

Pollock testified that the girl told him she had been kidnaped and molested.

The girl’s 5-year-old sister, in contrast, offered substantially clearer testimony during Dannat’s preliminary hearing, saying she remembered Dannat luring her sister into his car. She pointed confidently to the defendant as the man she had seen--remarking even that he had since had a haircut--and identified the color of his car by pointing to the green of a plant leaf in the courtroom.

Based on Pollock’s and the younger sister’s testimony, Municipal Judge Harry Elias ordered Dannat to stand trial on seven counts, ranging from kidnaping to sexual molestation to failing to register with Oceanside police as a sex offender, based on a 1988 conviction.

Dannat’s public defender, Barbara McDonald, said her client remembers nothing of the events of that day.

She said she was particularly concerned that Pollock’s questioning of the girl may have been suggestive and may have elicited untrue allegations of sexual molestation--especially since Dannat was arrested within 20 minutes of the alleged abduction and was still driving away from the girl’s home in Vista.

“Something is very wrong in a situation where a child is questioned and ends up (making allegations) that are patently impossible” to have occurred in that short a time, since the suspect was driving, McDonald said.

If convicted of all charges, Dannat faces a maximum prison term of 33 years. He will be arraigned Jan. 21 in Vista Superior Court. He is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.