Lockup Sought for Boy, 12, During Rape Trial

The prosecution asked a juvenile court judge Wednesday to keep a 12-year-old Lancaster boy locked up during his trial on charges of raping a 4-year-old cousin, a case that set off an exchange of accusations between the Sheriff’s Department and a doctor over medical treatment of the girl.

Judge Mort Rockman scheduled a hearing for Monday on the request by Deputy Dist. Atty. Dennis Young to keep the boy--who has been in a home for troubled youths since he was 10--in custody at Sylmar Juvenile Hall during the juvenile court proceeding.

Deputy Public Defender Philomene Swenson, the boy’s defense attorney, entered the equivalent of a not guilty plea for the youth at Wednesday’s hearing and objected to the prosecutor’s detention request as “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.”

If found guilty, the boy could be put on probation, placed in a foster or group home or sent to a youth detention camp or California Youth Authority lockup, Swenson said. How long he would remain would be up to the program or institution’s administrators, she said.

The boy has been accused in the past of burglary and assault. He has lived the past 16 months in La Verne at the Leroy Haynes Center for troubled youths.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies say the boy, released on a weekend pass, raped the girl at about 7 p.m. Sunday at his mother’s house in Lancaster.

A Sheriff’s Department report said the girl was then left waiting for 90 minutes in the emergency room at Lancaster Community Hospital, and was treated roughly and rudely by a physician, allegations the physician has denied. The doctor ultimately refused to carry out a test because the girl was crying, and a deputy had to complete the test, the report said.

The department denied Wednesday that deputies had called for a formal investigation of the doctor’s actions. A deputy said at the time that the department was “going to check into” the incident, especially because the hospital had a contractual obligation to the county to treat crime victims.

But a source within the department said there have been no findings that the deputy’s accounts of the exam were inaccurate.

Dr. Christine Daniel, the physician faulted in the reports, said in her defense that sheriff’s deputies tried to push the examination too rapidly “so they could rush out and arrest the 12-year-old.”

Daniel said she wanted the victim to be examined by a medical specialist because there were signs the girl had been abused in the past, but “the sheriff was only interested in getting evidence.”

She said the girl had to wait because hospital procedure requires the presence of a nurse from the county Sexual Assault Response Team, which was created to ensure that victims are treated sensitively and that the crimes are properly reported.

A hospital spokesman said Wednesday that the child arrived at the hospital at 9:05 p.m. and the response team nurse was summoned at 9:30. The response team nurse was there by 10:10, about 40 minutes before the arrival of a female deputy sheriff who had been called in by a male deputy because of her experience with sexual abuse cases, said the spokesman, Michael Sitrick.

The entire process took more than four hours, Sitrick said. “We have been told that, unfortunately, four hours is not an unusual amount of time for a case of this nature.”

“These are not simple, uncomplicated procedures. In extreme cases it can take up to 18 hours from beginning to end.”