Former Church Elder Held in Molestation

An 86-year-old former church elder, who a decade ago was banished from one of Orange County’s largest churches after admitting to molesting young girls but never faced criminal prosecution, was arrested Wednesday on a single count of child molestation.

James Campbell Truxton was forced in 1992 to leave Fullerton’s First Evangelical Free Church in disgrace when several women came forward to say that the Sunday school teacher had molested them when they were children.

Truxton publicly admitted that the accusations were true and set up a $30,000 trust fund to help pay for counseling for his victims, authorities said. Police said at least a dozen women received money from the fund from 1992 to 1994, though detectives believe as many as 25 girls were sexually abused by him.

Truxton was not prosecuted at the time because the alleged molestations--some dating to the 1950s--occurred after the six-year statute of limitations expired. But California law has since been changed to allow prosecutors to sidestep the statute in child molestation cases when victims come forward for the first time.

The new law opened the door for investigators to launch another probe of Truxton eight months ago, when a former member of the church telephoned Fullerton police to ask if they were still investigating the allegations.

Investigators reopened the case and in December contacted another woman who attended the Fullerton church as a girl. Now 29, the unidentified woman told detectives that when she was between 7 and 9, Truxton sexually abused her at his home, where he taught Sunday school classes and his wife taught piano lessons.

The report gave prosecutors enough evidence to file a felony charge against Truxton on Wednesday, accusing him of committing oral copulation on a child between Jan. 1, 1978, and Dec. 31, 1981.

He faces a maximum of seven years in prison if convicted.

“There is built-in trust between parents, children and the clergy, where parents think that nothing like this is going to happen in church-type settings. But it does,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Randy Payne.

“The clergy and churches are not immune from this.”

The arrest comes as the Catholic church reels from accusations that some of its priests molested children and were then allowed to keep their clerical positions as the church kept their crimes secret. But in the Truxton case, prosecutors praised leaders of the Fullerton church for cooperating with investigators.

“The church did everything [it] could,” Payne said. “The church investigated, they booted him out and they called the police. But at the time, we couldn’t do anything.... Now we have someone who came forward.”

Truxton’s public fall from grace began when a girl accused the elder of sexual misconduct in 1992. She told church officials about other victims, who launched their own investigation.

Church officials learned that similar allegations had been leveled against Truxton when he was a member of the Mission Aviation Fellowship based in Redlands, according to a search warrant affidavit filed by police. Truxton was a member of Mission Aviation from 1945 through his retirement in 1985.

First Evangelical Free Church leaders confronted Truxton about the allegations. Truxton admitted in letters to church officials and congregants that he was guilty of molestation. A member of the church from 1958, Truxton was banished from the church grounds.

“In some ways, it feels like it was yesterday because it was a heartache,” said church spokeswoman Jenni Key. “He was 76 and elderly, he was much loved in the church, and it was just devastating news.”

In the latest investigation, police discovered more than two dozen women who accused Truxton of molestation. The alleged crimes took place when the girls were between 7 and 13 years old, according to court documents.

Most of the women accused Truxton of kissing and groping them, documents show. Prosecutors said they were unable to file charges in those cases, however, because the statute of limitations remains in place unless the crimes are more serious, such as penetration or oral copulation.

During their investigation, Fullerton police collected evidence from First Evangelical Free Church. Among the items police found were letters that Truxton allegedly wrote to church officials, victims and congregants.

The letters, court documents said, included admissions of guilt and expressions of regret for his actions.

“As difficult and painful as it is for me to have to say it, I am guilty of much more than ... excessive hugging and kissing,” Truxton wrote in a letter dated Oct. 28, 1992, according to the court documents. “What I am guilty of is molestation.”

In another dated Sept. 24, 1992, he asked congregants to pray for him as he left the church.

“I plead for your prayers as I endeavor to make the remaining years of my life free of such gross hypocrisy,” he wrote, “but rather that they will be full of fruitful and consistent living among God’s people.”

About 10:40 a.m. Wednesday, Fullerton police officers armed with an arrest warrant went to Truxton’s home in a retirement community in Spring Valley, a small town east of San Diego. He was interrogated and taken to Orange County Jail, where he was being held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

Truxton could not be reached Wednesday. His wife, reached at home, declined to comment. But church officials said they stand behind prosecutors’ efforts to bring the case to trial, even while keeping Truxton and his wife in their prayers.

“We can pray for Jim and [his wife] as well,” said Key, the church spokeswoman, “but we’re behind anything the district attorney’s office does to prosecute this case.”

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Times staff writer Mai Tran contributed to this report.