Therapist Gets 90 Years in Sex Case

A Chatsworth family therapist who specialized in treating minors was sentenced Friday to 90 years in state prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of having unlawful sex with a 14-year-old girl he was counseling.

Allen Eldredge, 57, admitted using his position as a licensed therapist to coerce the Fillmore girl into sexual acts with him and his then-wife.

Eldredge pleaded guilty in November to 29 counts of forcible sex and one count of conspiracy.

His former wife, Judy Eldredge, 46, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting a rape as well as two counts of having unlawful sex with a minor. She was sentenced last month to six years in state prison.

The couple were arrested at their Chatsworth home on Nov. 25, 2000, after the girl, then 19, reported the incidents to Ventura County sheriff’s deputies.

A search turned up videotapes of the sexual assaults as well as journals in which Allen Eldredge had documented numerous encounters with the girl, prosecutors said.

The sexual abuse started in 1994, when Eldredge began to counsel her, and continued through 1996.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Wendy Macfarlane, who prosecuted the case, said Eldredge was not paid for the therapy sessions because he was a friend of the girl’s family.

Eldredge manipulated the girl into having sex after gradually gaining her trust, the prosecutor said.

“Because he was a therapist, whatever he told her had a lot more credibility,” Macfarlane said. “It was very much like an incestuous-molestation type of thing.”

Eldredge initially denied the charges. But he changed his plea to guilty two days into his trial in Ventura County Superior Court after jurors heard excerpts from his journals.

Eldredge faced up to 240 years in state prison--eight years for each of the 30 criminal counts. Macfarlane argued for that sentence based on the plotting that went into molesting the girl.

“He planned out everything,” she said, “and his pursuit of her was relentless.”

But Judge Roland Purnell handed down a minimum 90-year sentence, or three years for each count served consecutively, in part because Eldredge spared the girl from testifying, Macfarlane said.

Eldredge probably will die in prison, since he must serve 72 years before he is eligible for parole.

Sherman Oaks attorney Michael Zimbert, who represented Eldredge, could not be reached for comment late Friday.