Molester Is Arrested Decades After Fleeing His Sentencing

A man convicted more than 27 years ago of molesting children in Costa Mesa but who fled to Florida before sentencing was arrested last week in Miami, authorities said Monday.

George Joseph England, 60, was arrested Thursday on two unrelated federal charges of carrying a false passport, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said.

England was convicted in 1977 of molesting three girls in his motor home in the parking lot of an apartment building. After fleeing, he took the alias Stephen Arthur Seagoe -- the name of an 11-month-old boy from Santa Barbara County who died in 1946.

Rackauckas said England, who was being held in a Florida jail, would be sentenced for the three counts of molestation in Orange County under guidelines in effect at the time of his conviction.

Each count carries a possible sentence of three to five years. Had England been convicted under today’s laws, he could have faced 45 years to life in state prison, Rackauckas said.

“We will do everything we can to get the maximum possible sentence out of those counts,” Rackauckas said. In addition, he said, when that sentence has been served, the district attorney’s office will seek to have England designated a sexually violent predator, which could lead to additional prison time.

England served in the Army in Vietnam from 1963 to 1966, said Clint McCall, a district attorney’s investigator. He later worked in Vietnam as a civilian contractor, returning to the U.S. in 1972 with a 5-year-old Vietnamese girl who had been living in an orphanage. In 1977, England used the girl to lure three other girls, ages 8 to 10, to his motor home, where he sexually assaulted them, McCall said.

He was convicted in October 1977 of three counts of committing a lewd act upon a child.

“When he was convicted,” McCall said, “the judge let him out to get his affairs in order” before sentencing.

England fled with the Vietnamese girl to Santa Barbara County, where he assumed the alias, eventually applying for and receiving a birth certificate and Social Security card by mail, Rackauckas said.

England moved to Florida with the girl, who lived with him until her late teens.

Today, she is 38 and married. In April, she told an acquaintance who was an FBI agent the story of her life with England, including his use of the name Stephen Seagoe.

She told the agent that England had lived in Florida since fleeing California and had driven a taxi and worked for a cellphone company.

The warrant for England’s arrest was updated to include the alias.

The U.S. Diplomatic Security Service was already investigating Seagoe on suspicion of passport fraud, and the updated warrant connected the name to England.

U.S. marshals arrested England on Thursday on a yacht, McCall said. He had two passports under the false name, he said.

Rackauckas said England would be extradited to California after facing the federal passport charges.