Jury Gives Woman $200,000 Award in Molestation Case

A Superior Court jury has ordered a Santa Ana building contractor to pay $200,000 to a former neighbor who accused him of molesting her for seven years when they lived across the street from each other.

After deliberating for two days, jurors agreed that the contractor, Larry Wall, had molested Shirley Wellema beginning when she was 14 years old.

Wellema’s attorney, Paul Wallin of Santa Ana, said his client reported the sexual abuse to police a few years ago but was told that the statute of limitations for any criminal prosecution had expired.

Wellema then filed a civil lawsuit, and on Monday, jurors voted 10 to 2 to order Wall to pay her $200,000.

“I was happy that the jurors believed in me,” Wellema, now 27, said Tuesday. “It’s every victim’s wish that persons who abuse them would admit it.”

During the trial, Wall denied molesting his neighbor on Rene Drive in Santa Ana, saying instead that he had an affair with her after she turned 18.

Wall’s lawyer, Eric Lampel, called the verdict “a real tragedy.”

“This was another case of a clever network of psychotherapists and attorneys who put these cases together to make money,” Lampel said. “My client had an affair, and he’s an idiot for doing that. But she hit the jackpot--$200,000 is enough to wreck my client’s life.”

The civil trial lasted 18 days, during which jurors heard lurid testimony from Wellema and others that Wall pierced her body parts, forced her to wear rubber clothing during sex acts, and once removed all her hair with Nair.

Michael Fry, a 43-year-old Anaheim resident who was the presiding juror, said the “bizarre” testimony upset several jurors.

“It was despicable,’ said Fry, who works as a vice president for a chain of vocational schools. “It was some of the most deviant things I’ve ever heard of, and I’ve been around for some time. It was a sick thing to do. . . . No one at such a young, impressionable age should be subjected to these kinds of acts.”

Wellema testified that she told at least six school friends that Wall was molesting her but did not report him to authorities because she was embarrassed and felt she was to blame.

When she was 21, she fled to Canada, where she lived with relatives, Wellema said. She later joined a support group of molestation victims and decided that she should confront her abuser, Wellema said.

After being told by Santa Ana police investigators that the statutes of limitations had run its course, Wellema said, she decided to seek a civil remedy.

“I never wanted this to go this far,” Wellema said Tuesday, “but I lost my complete adolescence, and so far it’s been hard to get past what he has done to me.”

Wellema testified that as a result of her abuse she has suffered eating disorders, is distrustful of all men, and is unable to concentrate and therefore unable keep a full-time job.

She lives in Orange and works part time as a secretary at a bookkeeping firm, but she still needs to see a therapist twice weekly, Wellema said.

Lampel, the defendant’s attorney, described his client as a hard-working man and father of four who was active in the Parent-Teacher Assn. at Saddleback High School, which Wellema attended.

The lawyer denied that his client committed the “bizarre” sex acts alleged by Wellema. Instead, he claimed, Wall had fabricated her stories by watching soap operas on television and reading numerous romance novels.

But Fry and two other jurors said they didn’t find Wall’s argument credible.