Judge Sentences Admitted Child Molester to 150 Years

Calling the defendant a man without remorse, a San Diego Superior Court judge handed down a 150-year sentence to an admitted child molester in a case that began as the largest of its kind ever filed in the county.

Richard Earnest Howard, 46, of Walla Walla, Wash., pleaded guilty Jan. 9 to 91 counts of child molestation involving seven young girls. He had been charged with 350 counts and faced a maximum penalty of 633 years in prison.

Prosecutors said 16 girls were assaulted and that Howard videotaped some of the attacks to show other victims how girls were supposed to behave with older men.

All the victims, between 3 and 12 years old, were from the South Bay area of San Diego, except for a victim in New Mexico. The incidents occurred between April 1, 1990, and April 27, 1991.

In tears, Howard told Superior Court Judge Frederic Link that he had been molested as a child and had become a pedophile.

“I know it’s a terrible thing,” Howard said. “No matter what anybody thinks, it’s something I never enjoyed. It’s a lifetime thing . . . it’s like a contagious disease.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. John D. Williams painted a decidedly different picture of the man he said faked his own death on a Washington state ferry to avoid prosecution on similar charges and later assumed the identity of a dead 2-year-old boy from New Orleans.

Saying that Howard’s “lifelong profession” was child molesting, Williams called him a “truly evil” man who “has reduced children to sexual toys.”

“We find absolutely no reason for this man to view another sunset . . . other than from behind the closed walls of a prison,” Williams said.

Investigators have determined that, among other methods, Howard set up tables at swap meets and displayed items designed to attract the attention of young girls.

Williams said one of the videotapes viewed by the judge prior to sentencing showed Howard assaulting a girl in Las Cruces, N.M., after he had met her at a swap meet.

Defense attorney Albert Bradley stressed that Howard pleaded guilty at an early stage in the case because “he did not want to inflict any further damage on the children he has already victimized.” Bradley noted that the guilty plea spared the children the trauma of testifying in court and reliving their experiences.

Williams countered that Howard pleaded guilty because the evidence against him was overwhelming. The judge seemed to agree.

“The defendant is not remorseful,” Link said. “He’s remorseful because he has been caught and he faces a prison sentence.”

The 150-year sentence was the maximum Link could give Howard under the terms of a negotiated plea bargain.