Guilty verdict delivered in molestation case

Thousand Oaks resident Paul Whitehead, 25, was found guilty Aug. 26 of three felony counts of lewd act upon a child, kidnapping with intent to molest and sexual battery.

Whitehead, the adopted son of Las Virgenes Unified School District Board of Education member Gordon Whitehead, faces 25 years to life in prison. He’s being held at Ventura County’s Santa Paula jail pending sentencing on Sept. 28.

In November 2003 Whitehead was driving along Erbes Road in Thousand Oaks when he lured a 13-year-old girl into his pickup truck by telling her someone was following her and that she might be in danger. When the two drove away and the girl became scared, Whitehead put his hand on her upper thigh, allegedly to comfort her. The girl escaped the truck— although Whitehead said he stopped to let her out—and ran to a nearby house and called 911.

Several weeks earlier Whitehead reportedly forced a 16-yearold girl into a shed at the Thousand Oaks Do-it Center, where he was employed, and tried to kiss her and take off her clothes.

Jurors found Whitehead guilty of two felony counts in the incident involving the 13-year-old girl, one for lewd conduct with a child and one for kidnapping for child molestation.

Jurors also found Whitehead guilty of felony sexual battery, misdemeanor assault and false imprisonment in the incident involving the 16-year-old.

“With respect to the 13-yearold victim, the key evidence would have been the defendant’s videotaped confession that he had lured her into his vehicle because he was sexually attracted to her,” said Anthony Wold, Ventura County senior deputy district attorney.

Whitehead said his son’s intentions were to obtain the girl’s phone number and that his son stopped the truck at the girl’s request.

“The punishment is so distortive of what actually happened,” Gordon Whitehead said. “There was never any harm to either girl.”

Whitehead said the detective who interviewed his son regarding the kidnapping victim “led him down a conversational path, ending up with him agreeing that he had a sexual fantasy and that he became aroused.”

“As far as the general contention that the interview was somehow coercive or that (Whitehead) was somehow lead down the primrose path, I would have to disagree with that,” Wold said. “I’ve been doing this a long time and I can’t remember the last time I saw a more professional, openended completely hands-off interview conducted by law enforcement. The defendant exercised his free will to confess, and that’s what he did.”

The father of the younger girl said his daughter was traumatized.

“(Whitehead) took from my daughter her innocence, which no verdict can return to her,” said the father, who wished to remain anonymous. “No amount of sentencing, no amount of apology on his part, no feelings of sorrow from his family can ever return to her that which he took. When you listen to her panicked cries in her 911 tape, fearing for her life, it drives me crazy.”

Gordon Whitehead said both families have suffered irreparably.

“Paul’s stupidity and rudeness in frightening her were unforgivable,” Whitehead said. “But he did not and never would have molested her. The damage to Paul and his family is comparable.”

The punishment, he said, does not fit the crime.

“Code Section 190 of the California Penal Code states that murder in the first degree is punishable by death, life without parole or 25 years to life,” Whitehead said. “Same as hand on thigh and giving the girl a ride. Rape of this girl would have been punishable by 15 years to life.”

According to Wold, “I know that lay people often want to make that kind of a comparison, ‘a murderer gets this, a rapist gets that, a burglar gets this. But the problem with that analogy is that you’re not comparing apples to apples. The legislature decides what the penalties are for various violations of the penal code. . . . There are no labels in the penal code. If you’ve committed an offense, that offense carries a specific penalty with it. The judge just applied that penalty.

“The legislature of this state has wisely concluded that if you lure a child into your vehicle with the intent to molest that child and if that child’s risk of harm is enhanced because you lured them into your vehicle,” Wold said, “the penalty for that crime, because it’s so dangerous, is 25 to life.”

According to reports, neither girl had marks, bruises or wounds on their bodies. In the case of the 16-year-old girl at the Do-it Center, Whitehead testified that the incident was consensual.

Whitehead’s lawyer, Harold Greenberg, did not return phone calls requesting comment.

Whitehead’s father said he would appeal the verdict.

The boy was adopted from his native Mexico when he was 4 years old. Gordon Whitehead and his wife have seven children, including three by adoption and three from foster homes.