Man Pleads Not Guilty to Sex Crimes Against Young Women, 10-Year-Old : Courts: Defense attorney says client, son of a Beverly Hills police officer, was misidentified by alleged victims.

A Woodland Hills man pleaded not guilty Monday in Van Nuys Municipal Court to charges he abducted and raped or sexually assaulted three young women and a girl.

Howard August Davis, the 29-year-old son of a Beverly Hills police officer, kept his head bowed as he pleaded not guilty to 37 felonies, including kidnaping for sexual purposes, rape, sodomy and child molestation.

Defense attorney Peter L. Knecht said he would challenge identifications that three of the four alleged victims--ages 10 to 18--made of his client. They chose Davis’ likeness from a set of photos known in law enforcement circles as a “six pack.”

But Knecht said his client’s photograph “stood out larger and angrier and meaner than anyone else’s,” which, he said, may have influenced the victims to select it.

The child and young women were grabbed from West Valley streets by a man asking directions and taken in a pickup truck to isolated alleyways or mountain locations, where they were beaten and sexually assaulted. The young women were abducted at knifepoint, while the child was threatened with a stun gun, authorities said.

The abductions and assaults occurred between May 1 and May 30, Deputy Dist. Atty. Martin L. Herscovitz said.

Defense attorney Peter L. Knecht, a former prosecutor in Beverly Hills, said he’d often worked with Davis’ father and that the family was devastated by the charges.

“He was a helpful kid. The whole neighborhood is shocked,” he said.

Davis, who Knecht described as “a very good salesman,” will return to court July 21, when Judge Leland B. Harris will schedule a preliminary hearing. Davis is being held in lieu of $2-million bail.

Knecht said Davis asserts he is innocent. Davis, who had no prior criminal record, was arrested June 3 near the intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Sale Avenue, two days after investigators linked a string of sexual attacks to a single, serial rapist.