Trial in Child Molestation Case Ordered for Ex-Official

Retired sheriff’s sergeant and former Palmdale City Councilman Kevin Wright Carney was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges that over the past 10 years he repeatedly molested three girls at his office, in his truck, at the girls’ homes and during a camping trip.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigator Sgt. Allan Smith gave the girls’ accounts of sexual abuse during testimony at Carney’s preliminary hearing.

Carney has denied any wrongdoing, and his attorney, Milton Grimes, said the charges may be politically motivated because of his client’s conservative beliefs. “Whether there is somebody out there who wants to use these paths to stop him politically, I don’t know,” Grimes said.

Carney, 48, stepped down from the Palmdale City Council and retired from the Sheriff’s Department after the allegations were made. He was arrested on suspicion of child molestation in November, four days before his election to the council.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge David Horwitz ordered Carney to stand trial on 17 felony counts of child molestation, plus a charge of possessing child pornography. Carney faces up to four life sentences in prison if he is convicted of sexually abusing the girls, who lived in his Antelope Valley neighborhood.

Carney, who is married and has adult children, had been supervisor of the Sheriff Department’s north county child abuse unit, and regularly gave lectures on such crimes to sheriff’s deputies and community groups. He also had served as president of the Palmdale school board.

The three girls, now teenagers, told Smith that Carney began touching them when they were as young as 5. They collectively reported about 150 instances of sexual abuse, beginning in 1990.

The alleged molestations remained secret until two of the girls complained to police in 1997, during Carney’s unsuccessful campaign for Palmdale mayor. The district attorney’s office did not file charges, but the allegations were later included in the host of charges against Carney when a third girl told police in October that he forced her to have sex with him after school.

Carney hoped to become president of the United States, Grimes said. To that point, Smith testified, Carney warned the girls that if they reported the attacks, they could not visit him in the White House.

One of the girls said Carney molested her more than 100 times between April 1990 and Jan. 1, 1998, Smith testified, “typically at her house, at the office or in his vehicle.”

Prosecutors also submitted child pornography reportedly found in Carney’s briefcase during a police search of his home.

Grimes suggested that the pictures were to accompany a lecture Carney had been preparing.

“Weren’t those pictures found bundled with an envelope containing lecture notes and photos depicting child abuse?” Grimes asked Smith. “Weren’t you aware that he lectured extensively on child abuse?”

According to Smith, Carney’s notes and the pictures were found in the same briefcase but not bound together.

The briefcase was among the evidence gathered from Carney’s so-called turtle room. Smith, reading from notes, said two of the girls reported that Carney molested them while they played with his collection of turtles.

One girl told investigators that Carney pressured her to drink tequila after picking her up from school, then coerced her into having sex in his truck. Carney, Smith said, had been a father figure to the girl for almost 10 years.

Carney, who sat in court with his left hand cuffed to waist chains, did not testify.

Horwitz reduced Carney’s bail from $2 million to $1 million. His arraignment is set for March 15 in Superior Court.