Released Molester Faces New Charges

A convicted child molester recently released from Orange County Jail is now facing three new sex abuse charges in Oregon, authorities said Friday.

Edward Stokes, 49, will be arraigned Monday in Multnomah County on charges related to three crimes that occurred in 1996, including kidnapping and sodomy, said Sgt. Cheryl Robinson, a spokeswoman for the Portland Police Department.

Although the statute of limitations could have run out on the crimes, she said, Oregon law allows it to be extended if prosecutors can prove that the suspect was living out of state. In Stokes’ case, she said, he was in jail in California.

In fact, the man authorities describe as one of the worst sexual predators on the West Coast and who once admitted to a therapist that he had molested 212 people, had been serving a life sentence since his 2001 conviction for drugging and sexually assaulting Blue Kartak, a 16-year-old runaway he met at a Seattle coffeehouse and lured to an Anaheim motel.

The California 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana ruled in November that Stokes’ constitutional right to cross-examine his accuser was compromised because Kartak had committed suicide by the time prosecutors produced a supplemental 83-page police report that raised questions about the victim’s credibility.

Stokes was released April 7 after the state Supreme Court refused to review the appeals court’s ruling.

Police issued a warrant for Stokes’ arrest after he applied for a driver’s license in Hazel Dell, Wash., using a false address. He was arrested Sunday on fraud and perjury charges at a laundromat in Gresham, Ore.

The new charges, Robinson said, stem from three separate incidents involving three men, two of whom were 24 at the time and the other who was 21.

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Times staff writer David Haldane contributed to this report.