Golfer Arrested in Molestation

A Camarillo golf enthusiast poised to try out for the PGA tour this week allegedly kidnapped and sexually molested a 9-year-old mentally disabled girl he held captive for more than five hours, authorities said Monday.

David Pichon, 33--who was to try out for the tournament at the Crystalaire Country Club in the High Desert community of Llano--was arrested early Sunday, authorities said. He was being held at Lancaster Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.

Investigators expect the district attorney to file charges today of kidnapping and sexual assault on a minor, said Lt. John Crabb of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“She wasn’t raped,” Crabb said of the young victim. “But she was touched inappropriately. There was a sexual assault.”

Monday, David Pichon’s wife, Sharon, who works with him at their Custom Car Sounds store on East Main Street in Ventura, reserved judgment.

“A lot of it has been inaccurate and blown extremely out of proportion,” she said. She declined further comment.

The incident began Saturday afternoon when the girl, who has the mental capacity of a 4-year-old, wandered away from her home in Pearblossom. She was walking along Pearblossom Highway when a man offered her a ride.

At one point, according to authorities, witnesses reported seeing a young girl getting into a white Cadillac in the parking lot of the Pearblossom Post Office. The witnesses followed the Cadillac long enough to call sheriff’s deputies with the car’s license plate number.

Deputies at the Palmdale station received the call just after the parents of the girl called to report her missing.

At about 9:30 p.m. Saturday, a Littlerock resident found the girl wandering again, this time in the area of 95th Street East and Avenue T-8, and notified police.

The girl was reunited with her family and taken to Antelope Valley Medical Center for tests to determine whether she had been sexually assaulted.

According to investigators, David Pichon is the man who picked up the girl and drove her to different locations in the High Desert--including a clothing store, a McDonald’s restaurant and to Crystalaire, a community which surrounds Crystalaire Country Club, near Llano.

During interviews, the girl gave investigators enough information to lead them to Pichon, describing his car and the country club, authorities said.

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Times staff writer Solomon Moore contributed to this story.