Countywide : Man Pleads Guilty to Child Molestation

A Lake Forest man has pleaded guilty to posing as a Los Angeles radio station personality and offering teen-age girls concert tickets in exchange for sexual favors.

David Eugene Zebe, 27, plead guilty Tuesday in Municipal Court in Laguna Niguel on one count of child molestation, one count of attempted child molestation and seven counts of misdemeanor child annoyance, Deputy Dist. Atty. Claudia Silbar said.

Zebe had approached more than 30 girls, ages 14 to 17, from October to early November, with the ticket offer and kissed one 15-year-old, Silbar said.

“There were several times where there was real minimal contact,” she said. “We didn’t file on those. Once he started insinuating anything sexual, and once he contacted the child again, we filed child annoyance.”

Zebe was sentenced to 240 days in jail and five years’ probation. As of Sunday, new legislation will also require Zebe to register as a sex offender in whatever city he lives.

“I think it’s an appropriate sentence,” Silbar said. “The most serious completed act was a kiss to a 15-year-old. He also expressed a great deal of remorse and said he needed help. The judge gave him a break because he was asking for help.”

Zebe also had cooperated with investigators by supplying them with the names and phone numbers of some of the girls he approached, Deputy Public Defender Mike McClellan said.

“He’s a nice kid who has absolutely no criminal background,” McClellan said. “I thought the judge was a little bit heavy.”

Zebe will serve his sentence at Orange County Jail, where he has been since his arrest Nov. 3.

Deputies arrested Zebe after a 15-year-old Aliso Viejo High School student told officers that she was scheduled to meet Zebe that day. The girl had been warned by a friend from Santiago High School that a suspicious man was going around offering girls concert tickets.

Zebe allegedly posed as an employee of the alternative radio station, KROQ-FM. He was never employed at the radio station.