Youth Fails to Appear for Trial in Sexual Assault

A teenager is the subject of an arrest warrant after failing to appear in court to be tried on charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old British girl on a skiing vacation.

The trial of Paul Klesic, 18, was to have begun Monday in Mammoth Lakes. He allegedly attacked the girl at a party in February.

A 17-year-old boy, also from Santa Monica, was charged with attacking a 14-year-old girl at the same party and is being tried separately as a juvenile.

Both girls are from Birmingham, England. The case has received wide publicity in Britain.

“There was alcohol and everyone was drinking it. It appears that the girls got extremely intoxicated and two of the young men from Santa Monica, for want of a better term, took advantage of that,” Mammoth Lakes Dist. Atty. Tim Kendall told the Birmingham Post last month.

The two girls were among a party of 120 pupils and 14 employees from a school who visited the ski resort.

On Feb. 17, they accompanied two British schoolboys to a party at a condominium. The British students had met the Santa Monica teenagers earlier in the day. After the girls were allegedly attacked, they reported the incident to police, who arrested the Santa Monica youths.

Reporters in Britain were waiting for the girls when they returned to Heathrow airport in London.

In addition to the sexual assault charges, Klesic was accused of providing alcohol to someone under 21, possession of marijuana, theft of credit cards and receiving stolen property. The theft involved a different victim, also a minor.

Mono County Superior Court Judge Stan Eller on Monday issued a warrant for Klesic’s arrest. He had been out of jail on bail since his April 30 arraignment, at which he pleaded innocent to the charges.