Police Find Molester’s ‘Stunning’ Records

Meticulous records kept by a convicted child molester indicate that he may have had hundreds of victims in five states, Brazil and Mexico over more than 30 years, police and prosecutors in San Jose said Thursday.

“Assuming these numbers are remotely accurate, these are far and away the most stunning, over-the-top numbers I’ve ever seen in terms of potential victims,” said San Jose Police Lt. Scott Cornfield, commander of the department’s sexual assault investigations unit.

Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller, who has a molestation record stretching back to 1970, apparently used several aliases and never registered his whereabouts as required with authorities, so his name did not appear on Megan’s Law databases, police said.

Schwartzmiller was arrested last month in Snohomish County, Wash., where he is believed to have fled after a San Jose couple told police that their 12-year-old son had been molested by the 63-year-old plastering contractor. Detectives said subsequent investigation revealed that Schwartzmiller is believed to have molested another boy in San Jose.

Officers said Schwartzmiller lured the boys to his San Jose home with gifts, then showed them movies and videos before sexually assaulting them.

During a search of the home, officers found seven binders containing the first names of hundreds of boys, said Steve Fein, a deputy Santa Clara County district attorney.

“There were codes,” Fein said.

“In some cases, he’d put nicknames,” Cornfield said. “He had titles of categories: boys under 12, boys over 14, cute boys, some specific act, boys who have said no.”

In all, the binders contained 36,720 listings, but many of them were repetitive, Cornfield said.

As to the exact number of youngsters who were molested, “it’s anybody’s guess,” the police lieutenant said. “There’s a good likelihood there could be hundreds of victims.”

Also recovered were compact discs containing pictures of boys who may have been victims and some computer files that have yet to be examined, police said.The lieutenant said the San Jose investigation began after the 12-year-old’s mother saw one of the CDs, which contained nude shots of the boy. According to Cornfield, Schwartzmiller had “asked the 12-year-old boy to destroy the CDs with pictures.”

In addition to Schwartzmiller, police arrested his roommate, Fred Everts. Officers said Everts, 34, had been wanted in Oregon for violating his parole in connection with a child-molestation charge there, and he was subsequently charged in connection with molestations in San Jose.

Published records indicate Schwartzmiller was first arrested in February 1970 in Juneau, Alaska, where he was convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct with three teenage boys and placed on probation. Two years later, a grand jury in Juneau indicted him on a charge of molesting one of two teenage boys he had brought with him to Alaska from Kentucky. Schwartzmiller fled before his trial.

In March 1974, he was arrested in Mountain Home, Idaho, on suspicion of molesting two 13-year-old boys there. Schwartzmiller posted bail, then fled to Brazil. A year later, he was extradited from Brazil and arrested in Brooklyn, N.Y. In June 1976, he was convicted of one of the molestation charges in Idaho and sentenced to eight years in prison. Because of the prosecution in Idaho, Alaska dropped its charges against him.

Schwartzmiller was released on parole in March 1978. Nine months later, the Idaho Supreme Court overturned his conviction. In May 1979, an arrest warrant was issued for Schwartzmiller in Idaho after two 14-year-old boys said he had molested them. In December 1980, the FBI found him in Milwaukie, Ore., and arrested him.

A month later, Schwartzmiller appeared in federal court in San Francisco to face charges that he lured a 16-year-old Arkansas boy to California to make him a prostitute. A magistrate dropped those charges so that Schwartzmiller could be tried in Idaho on the 1979 molestation charges. In May 1981, he was convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In August 1987, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his 1981 conviction. At his retrial in 1989, Schwartzmiller pleaded guilty to one count of lewd and lascivious behavior and agreed to drop civil suits against his accusers. In return, prosecutors dropped the additional charges against him, and he was set free.

In May 1993, he pleaded no contest to charges of sodomizing a 15-year-old boy in Oregon. He was sentenced to four years and one month in prison.

After his release from prison, he was accused of sexually assaulting a boy in Oregon, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. It was unclear whether he was charged in that case.