Sex Abuse Case Tape Barred From Public

A judge barred disclosure Tuesday of a videotaped statement made by a teenager who has accused William French Anderson, a renowned geneticist and USC professor, of molesting her.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Cathryn Brougham asked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Judson W. Morris Jr. to order that the defense not release the tape publicly.

Morris granted the request but not before Anderson’s attorney, Barry Tarlow, asked that a similar limitation be imposed on the prosecution. Morris agreed.

Attorneys also agreed that the girl’s name would remain “Jane Doe” in all filings.

Anderson, 67, has been charged with sexually molesting the girl, a daughter of a colleague at USC’s Gene Therapy Laboratories, between 1997 and 2001, when she was 10 to 14 years old.

He faces one charge of continuous sex abuse on a child and five counts of lewd acts upon a child, charges punishable by 32 years in prison. Anderson, who is free on $600,000 bail, has pleaded not guilty and in an e-mail this summer to colleagues at USC denied any wrongdoing.

Anderson, a martial arts expert, taught the girl karate in his San Marino home, prosecutors said. Last spring, the girl talked to a counselor. The counselor contacted county social services personnel and they contacted police.

Sheriff’s detectives eventually taped a conversation between the accuser and the accused that the girl initiated under their instruction. The girl wore a concealed transmitter, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Anderson has been dubbed the “father of gene therapy” after a team he led in 1990 cured a hereditary disease of the immune system in a 4-year-old girl. The child was infused with white cells that had been removed from her blood and supplied with a missing gene. It was the first time that gene therapy was successful in humans.