Voice Tutor Will Face Sex Abuse Charges

A former voice coach for the All-American Boys’ Choir was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges that he repeatedly assaulted one of his students.

An Orange County Superior Court judge issued his ruling after hearing testimony from the lead detective about some of the ploys that police said Roger A. Giese used over a four-year period to get the victim, a Buena Park teenager, to comply.

Giese, 27, was ordered to return to court March 17 for arraignment on four counts of lewd acts upon a child and related charges. If convicted, he faces up to nearly 13 years in prison.

“We’re happy the judge found there’s enough evidence to go forward,” said Susan Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney’s office. “We look forward to taking this to trial and making sure the defendant is convicted so he can’t commit any further crimes such as these.”

Giese’s attorney, Ron Bower, could not be reached for comment.

Giese was arrested in late September after Buena Park police investigated complaints that he had molested the teen from 1998 to 2002, beginning when the boy was 13.

The suspect met the teen through the choir and was giving him private singing lessons at the boy’s home, where the abuse is alleged to have occurred.

Giese has since left the choir and the Irvine advertising company where he worked. He was present in a Fullerton courtroom Wednesday as Buena Park Police Detective Jerry Von Gries elaborated on some of the findings of his investigation.

Gries testified that Giese enticed the boy to masturbate in front of him by claiming he could join him as a Secret Service sniper if he provided sperm samples.

When the teen told Giese on another occasion that he was uncomfortable about Giese obtaining samples from him, Giese allegedly told him he would have doctors come in and perform the procedure, sometimes giving him a blue gelatin capsule to relax him while he waited for the doctor, court documents show.

The boy “never saw more than one person in the room at any time and never saw the face of anyone,” Gries wrote in his reports.

The boy told police he believed Giese stopped molesting him because he had stopped believing Giese’s stories, court records show.