Ex-Professor, Girlfriend Admit Abusing Girl, 4 : Crime: The former Loma Linda faculty member and a medical firm secretary plead guilty to sex acts with the child. They were identified through photos they took while molesting her.

Six months after a highly publicized hunt led to their arrest, a former university professor and his girlfriend each pleaded guilty Monday to multiple felony counts of sexually abusing a 4-year-old Newport Beach girl.

Ronald Ruskjer, 44, a onetime faculty member at Loma Linda University’s school of public health, pleaded guilty to three counts of sex abuse of a child and two counts of taking sexually explicit photographs of a child.

San Bernardino Deputy Dist. Atty. Frank Vanella said Ruskjer--who could have faced up to 30 years in state prison if convicted in trial--is expected to receive a 12-year term when he is sentenced June 22.

During a separate appearance later in the day, Ruskjer’s girlfriend, Evelyn (Evie) Bacilio, 33, a former secretary at a medical equipment company, pleaded guilty to two counts each of child sex abuse and taking sexually explicit photographs of a child. Vanella said he expects Bacilio to be sentenced to six years in state prison.

The two, who appeared Monday before Superior Court Judge Roberta McPeters, are being held on $2 million bail.

Ruskjer’s attorney, Greg Waitman, said his client was “very remorseful” about the incident.

“All of us at one time or another get involved in something and get carried away, and this was just one of those things,” Waitman said after the hearing.

Ruskjer and Bacilio, who lived in the San Bernardino County community of Grand Terrace, were arrested Oct. 8 after dozens of tips led to their identity as suspects in the child abuse case.

The case began to unfold last October when someone turned over to Los Angeles police 11 photographs--four showing a man performing sex acts with a little girl, three showing a woman doing the same, and four showing the girl by herself.

The photographs, it was learned later, were thrown out of Ruskjer’s car window after the car was stolen. Police at the time had no clues to the identity of the suspects or the young victim.

Even though state law prohibits distributing pictures showing sex with children, frustrated police won court permission to publicly release three carefully edited photos to the news media, with the hope that someone would recognize either the adults or the girl.

Within hours of the photographs’ broadcast on nightly news programs, police received 40 calls identifying Ruskjer and Bacilio as the suspects. But when authorities descended on their homes early the next morning, both suspects already had fled.

Yet another tipster called to alert the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department to the couple’s travel plans. The next day--within 36 hours of the release of the photographs--Ruskjer was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after landing there on a flight from Tokyo, and Bacilio was arrested at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas while preparing to fly to Chicago.

By then, other tips had led authorities to the identity of the girl and her parents in Newport Beach.

Ruskjer, a divorced father of two, taught health administration to graduate students at Loma Linda University from 1988 to 1991. He then joined the San Bernardino County health department to help develop public health campaigns.

Vanella said the photographs were taken Jan. 9 at Ruskjer’s home while the girl’s parents were in Palm Springs. The child’s parents had asked Bacilio--who worked with the girl’s mother--to babysit.

There was no indication, Vanella said, that the girl was raped.

“The victim has absolutely no recollection of what happened that night,” Vanella said. “We are fairly comfortable there was no physical injury.”