Man Arrested as Suspect in Molestations

A 32-year-old man was arrested Saturday morning on suspicion of molesting several teenage boys he had contacted through the Internet, police said.

James Lorincz was booked into Orange County Jail on $250,000 bail after Huntington Beach police detectives and investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice’s sexual assault unit served a search warrant at his home in the upscale Pacific Ranch development.

Police declined to say exactly how many teenagers Lorincz is accused of molesting but confirmed that the victims are from Orange County and number fewer than 10. They are investigating whether there are additional victims, said Police Lt. Gary Brooks.

The 8 a.m. search inside the gated community near City Hall culminated a lengthy investigation of Lorincz, Brooks said.

“We’ve had information on this guy for a while, and the investigators thought it was time for the search,” he said. “I think it was a combination of both [information from] the Internet and knowing the background of the suspect.”

Brooks said the police wouldn’t provide details of the case until next week. In a statement released Saturday, Lt. John Arnold said Lorincz used the Internet to contact boys and that some of the boys “were seduced and or coerced into sexual actions.”

The search of Lorincz’s Pompano Lane apartment yielded “materials that led [investigators] to the charges of child molestation” as well as video recording equipment believed to be used for illegally copying tapes, Brooks added.

Two people who live in the area off Yorktown Avenue and Main Street expressed surprise at the arrest. “It’s scary, because Huntington Beach High School is just a block down the road,” said Florence Hunter, 50. “Children are walking around here all the time.”

Huntington Beach police are considered one of the area’s most aggressive investigators of sex-related crimes on the Internet. Police detectives regularly monitor explicit “chat rooms” and on several occasions have posed as teenagers as part of undercover investigations.

In February, police arrested a Washington, D.C., man on suspicion of solicitation that he communicated via electronic mail with a police detective posing as a 13-year-old boy. The suspect was nabbed outside a Huntington Beach fast-food restaurant, where he was to meet the “boy.”

A Pennsylvania man was sentenced to 18 months in prison in February after using the Internet to propose a sexual encounter with a 12-year-old boy, who also turned out to be an undercover Huntington Beach officer.