Man Suspected in Pacoima Rapes Arrested

A paroled sex offender accused of raping three schoolchildren and terrorizing a Pacoima neighborhood was arrested Wednesday by Inglewood police, who said he also is a suspect in a recent sex assault on a girl there.

Robert Lee Donaldson, 34, who was paroled from prison in February after a 1982 conviction of raping a child, was believed to be stalking a girl near a school when police arrested him early Wednesday, according to Los Angeles Police Department detectives and a parole official.

The Pacoima attacks, which began Aug. 30, led parents to band together to escort their children to schoolyards.

“We’re relieved,” said Kathy O’Driscoll, assistant principal of Hillery T. Broadous Elementary School, which two of the victims attended. But parents and children probably won’t let down their guard, she said.

“In this day and age, it’s better to keep walking with them and caution them to stick together,” O’Driscoll said. “It’s a terrible lesson.”

Inglewood detectives are investigating Donaldson in connection with a sexual assault and a separate attempted kidnaping. The victims were girls, age 9 and 16, Inglewood police said. The attacks occurred Oct. 11 and 18, within three blocks of each other, authorities said.

The two police departments had been in contact for about two weeks, after incidents similar to those in Pacoima occurred in Inglewood. Police tracked Donaldson to Inglewood through a telephone call he made to Pacoima, said Detective Diane Webb of the department’s Foothill Division, which has been seeking Donaldson in the Pacoima attacks.

Inglewood detectives confirmed Donaldson’s identity late Wednesday through fingerprints, Inglewood police spokesman Sgt. Alex Perez said.

Donaldson gave officers a false name when arrested, Perez said. But he inadvertently signed his real name on a booking form and detectives discovered the warrant using that name, he said.

Donaldson is wanted on a 19-count felony warrant for the rape of an 11-year-old boy and two girls, ages 11 and 16, as they walked to school near Van Nuys Boulevard and Borden Avenue in August and September.

Donaldson had been accused of the rape or attempted rape of four children within half a mile of that intersection in 1982. He pleaded guilty to one of those assaults and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

After serving 9 1/2 years, Donaldson was paroled, in what was termed “a flaw in the system” by Jerome DiMaggio, the state’s regional parole administrator for northern Los Angeles County.

The Donaldson case also spurred psychiatrists and other experts to question whether California is doing enough to alter the behavior of sex offenders while incarcerated.

Under the state’s determinate sentencing laws, Donaldson earned time off for good behavior and was paroled automatically in June, 1991.

From what officials will reveal about his prison psychiatric record, Donaldson received no concerted treatment other than about 56 hours of group therapy sessions while on parole.

Donaldson violated parole and was sent back for another year in February, 1992. In March, one month after his re-release, he disappeared from a downtown men’s shelter, violating parole and the sex-offender registration law.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Police Capt. James T. McBride of the Foothill Division, reacting to Donaldson’s arrest. “This predator will no longer be preying on little children.”

Prosecutors portrayed Donaldson as a specialist at preying on children since he was 15 years old, according to court records.

At ages 15 and 16, Donaldson was accused of raping children, according to court documents. His juvenile record, which also includes an attempted murder charge, is closed, court records say.

In the case that sent him to prison in 1982, Donaldson was accused of raping three boys and attempting to rape another in a series of attacks from September, 1981, to May, 1982.

All of the incidents occurred within a half-mile of Van Nuys Boulevard and Borden Avenue, an area that also includes two elementary schools and a middle school.

He pleaded guilty to one attack, the May, 1982, rape and robbery of a 15-year-old he lured into a medical facility at Van Nuys Boulevard and Dronfield Avenue.

The recent attacks occurred near the intersection of Van Nuys Boulevard and Borden Avenue, virtually the same location of the 1981-1982 rapes.

Warrants cite the following:

Aug. 30, 1993: An 11-year-old boy was kidnaped as he walked to Broadous School and was raped in a vacant apartment in the 12600 block of Van Nuys Boulevard.

Sept. 21, 1993: A 16-year-old female student at Kennedy High School, on her way to a bus stop, was kidnaped and raped in the same apartment. She also was robbed of jewelry.

Sept. 22, 1993: An 11-year-old girl, also from Broadous, was kidnaped, raped and robbed, again at the same apartment.

Staff writers Timothy Williams and Michelle Fuetsch contributed to this story.