State Inspector Charged With Molesting Boy

A state investigator who is responsible for protecting minors in group homes has been charged with molesting a 17-year-old boy in a locked counseling room at a Torrance center for emotionally disturbed teenagers.

Efrain Villarreal III, who oversaw child-care facilities for a decade, was arrested late last month and charged with annoying and molesting a minor at the Star View Adolescent Center.

The state Division of Community Care Licensing, a unit of the Department of Social Services, fired Villarreal, 46, the day the misdemeanor charges were filed. He is free on $5,000 bail pending a Dec. 2 arraignment. A conviction could lead to a sentence of up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Police records show that four years before the state agency hired him, Villarreal was convicted of lewd conduct related to solicitation of sex from an adult in a department store bathroom.

A spokeswoman said the agency did not perform criminal background checks of employees then. The agency began to fingerprint many employees just last month, running the prints through a state Department of Justice computer.

“I have a feeling this incident will expedite that process,” said Karen Perkins, public information officer for the state Department of Social Services.

Villarreal, of Highland Park, did not return calls seeking comment.

The licensing division inspects hundreds of group homes a year. Villarreal was a licensing program analyst, assigned to inspect Star View and about 14 other homes for minors, many of them foster children under the care of the county Department of Children and Family Services.

The suspect visited Star View on May 15 to investigate allegations that the 17-year-old boy had raped an adolescent girl there, according to Torrance police reports.

Villarreal took the teenager to a room to interview him, several of the home’s employees told police. Center Director John Saroyan, a custodian and nurse Mildred McClean all entered the room at different times during the interview but didn’t notice any inappropriate behavior, they told police.

McClean, the last visitor, told police she locked the door at Villarreal’s request because he said activity in the hall disturbed him.

The boy later told his therapist that Villarreal fondled him and masturbated in front of him, according to police reports.

Star View employees, including Executive Director Kent Dunlap, criticized the state agency for not screening its employees better.

“It’s one of the frustrating things we have to deal with,” he said, “that a program has people coming from the outside, interfacing with our children that we are not able to monitor as we monitor our own staff.”

Dunlap said that his staff is typically not permitted to interview residents behind locked doors but that “we have to conform with what Community Care Licensing wants.”

Star View is a private facility that contracts with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and the Department of Children and Family Services to provide housing and rehabilitation for severely disturbed adolescents who have failed to thrive in foster homes and other group homes.

The center charges $60,000 a year for housing, intensive psychiatric care and other services and operates South Bay High School on its grounds.

The facility opened in late 1996 and was soon beset by a series of complaints to state and other authorities, including reports that children were punished with powerful tranquilizers, that one boy’s collarbone was broken in a “take-down” by counselors and that a girl was groped by a maintenance man.

Regulators said conditions had improved over the last two years, with intensive scrutiny from the state licensing division and other regulators.

Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this story.