AIDS Testing Urged for Sex Abuse Suspect

A prosecutor asked a judge Wednesday to force a convicted sex offender facing charges in four sexual assaults of schoolchildren to undergo AIDS testing and submit blood and saliva samples.

Robert Lee Donaldson, 34, is accused of 24 felony counts in the assaults on a boy and three girls, ages 9 to 16, who were attacked as they walked to school between Aug. 30 and Oct. 18 in Pacoima and Inglewood. The attacks caused alarm among parents similar to the fears now facing West Valley residents in the wake of another series of assaults on children.

San Fernando Municipal Judge Roy Carstairs set a Dec. 1 hearing to discuss the blood samples, and a Dec. 22 preliminary hearing on the multiple rape, robbery, kidnaping and sexual assault charges.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jacquelyn Lacey said her request for the blood test is routine in rape cases.

Carstairs also granted a defense motion to segregate Donaldson from other prisoners because of alleged threats on his life.

“I understand he was assaulted in one case and had razor blades pulled on him several times,” defense counsel Bobby Black told Carstairs.

Donaldson was not injured in any of the attempts, Black said. He did not specify when the alleged attacks occurred, but said one assault happened in the courthouse detention facility.

Donaldson is being held in lieu of $2-million bail after his Oct. 20 arrest near a school campus in Inglewood. At the time, Donaldson was on parole on a 1982 rape conviction for which he served 9 1/2 years of a 16-year sentence. The conviction stemmed from attacks on three boys in the same Pacoima neighborhood where the assaults occurred this fall. Donaldson pleaded guilty to robbing and raping one boy, and the remaining charges were dropped.

Donaldson’s early release from prison was blasted as a flaw in the system by parole and law enforcement officials.