Repeat Molester Crummel Jailed to Cheers in O.C.

NEWPORT BEACH —  As neighbors who had protested his presence in their midst cheered, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputies Friday arrested repeat child molester James Lee Crummel at his condominium for allegedly molesting three teenagers nine years ago.

And in a move that coincided with the arrest, investigators from Riverside County searched Crummel’s home for evidence that might link him to the murder of 13-year-old James Trotter, who disappeared on his way to school in 1979.

An hour and a half after the deputies searched the residence Friday, they carted out a stack of worn, leather-bound photo albums and a grocery bag of potential evidence.

“Porno! Porno! Porno!” neighbors shouted as the albums were loaded into the trunk of a police car.

Crummel, whose criminal record police plastered throughout his Newport Crest neighborhood under the controversial Megan’s Law, had previously been charged with the same crimes that led to the Friday arrest.

Prosecutors had relied on a new law that extended the statute of limitations for certain sex crimes against children. But a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge threw out the case in late 1995 on constitutional grounds, said San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Denise Trager-Dvorak.

New state legislation that took effect in January gave prosecutors six months to refile all the sex cases that had been thrown out under the flawed law, Trager-Dvorak said. A test case is scheduled to be heard before the state Supreme Court, and the Crummel case may still face legal challenges, Trager-Dvorak said.

“My reading of the case, and the attorney general’s reading, is that the law is on our side and has always been that way,” she said.

Crummel is expected to be arraigned next week on 15 felony counts of molestation of three 14-year-old boys. Bail has been set at $500,000.

The charges include oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance and anal penetration by a foreign object. The incidents occurred between May 1987 and October 1988 in Big Bear, but were not reported to police until Sept. 1, 1995, according to the complaint. Thirteen counts involve one boy, and investigators seized photographs in an earlier search of Crummel’s home that showed him touching the naked boy’s penis, the complaint said.

Charges were filed last week but San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies did not obtain an arrest warrant until Wednesday, said department spokeswoman Cindy Beavers.

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New evidence was obtained in 1996, after the first case was thrown out, but Beavers said she could not say whether that was the photos.

Beavers said she did not know the relationship between Crummel and the 14-year-olds.

Once residents learned where Crummel was living, they launched a fevered campaign to force him out, picketing outside his condominium and his roommate’s office nearly every day.

Neighbors watched enthusiastically as about a dozen officers from four agencies ran up to Crummel’s front door.

“I heard them shouting ‘Police! Sheriff’s Department! We have a warrant, open up!’ neighbor James Pappas said. “Then they took this huge battering ram and went bam! bam! They hit the door five or six times and pounded it open.”

Newport Beach police drove to the Fashion Island office building of Crummel’s roommate and saw their target’s black Mercury Cougar parked outside. They watched Crummel walk outside a minute later, radioed deputies back at the house and followed him as he drove there.

Crummel was stopped just outside the condominium, told he was under arrest and quietly held his hands out to be handcuffed, said Newport Beach Police Det. Shontel Sherwood.

The arrest brought relief to a San Pedro family whose 9-year-old son, Jack “J.D.” Phillips, disappeared two years ago at a parade in Big Bear Lake. Crummel was one of several registered sex offenders then living in the area who were questioned about the boy’s disappearance. Beavers said Crummel remains one of several suspects.

Michele Phillips, 41, the boy’s mother, said she started “jumping up and down on the bed” when she heard of the arrest.

“I knew they were going to arrest him, but I couldn’t tell anybody,” said Rod Cato, 40, the boy’s stepfather. “We’re happy that he’s off the streets. We’ve accepted the fact that we’re never going to see J.D. alive again, and we’re dealing with that.”

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Crummel has been convicted of sex crimes in four states dating to the 1960s, one involving a girl and the rest boys, all between the ages of 9 and 14, according to police and court records. He was also convicted of the murder of a 9-year-old boy in Arizona in 1983, but the judge ruled that his lawyer was ineffective and granted a new trial. He pleaded guilty in 1987 to kidnapping.

Court-martial documents detailed crimes Crummel committed against children while he was a 17-year-old soldier serving at Ft. Leonard Wood in Missouri.

In addition to the Phillips case, Crummel is being investigated in connection with the Trotter boy’s disappearance. Riverside County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Mark Lohman said deputies were searching for “items that may link him to our crime.”

“I’m not going to say he’s not a suspect,” Lohman said. “We’re looking at him.”

Eleven years after James Trotter disappeared, Crummel reported to authorities that he had stumbled upon bones in the Cleveland National Forest, which were then recovered and subsequently identified as the missing boy’s remains.

Pomona police also want to question Crummel about the strangulation of a 6-year-old boy in 1981. Investigators talked to Crummel about the killing at the time, but he had an alibi, police have said.

Crummel has been living in Newport Beach off and on since the 1970s. In 1995, he moved into the Newport Crest condominium full-time with 79-year-old psychiatrist Burnell Forgey, who has taken in at least two other sex offenders as roommates or “caretakers.”

Under pressure from neighbors, Forgey’s son and daughter-in-law, who own the condominium, served eviction notices to Crummel and then the psychiatrist.

Megan’s Law allows police to warn neighbors of high-risk sex offenders living nearby, and officers posted fliers in the wealthy neighborhood several weeks ago detailing Crummel’s criminal history, along with his photo.

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Neighbors screamed, hugged and uncorked a bottle of champagne after hearing of Crummel’s arrest. Meanwhile, detectives picked apart the unit, which was tastefully decorated with antique sofas and armchairs. Potted plants and reddish geraniums filled the back patio and window boxes.

“Na-na-na-na na-na-na-na, hey, hey, goodbye!” Darleen Savoji, a self-described “vigilante mom” who lives half a block from Crummel, said she shouted as he was being taken away.

Savoji, who organized many of the protests, said residents didn’t plan to picket the unit Friday as they have every weeknight for two weeks.

Her 7-year-old daughter, Annie, pumped her fist and shouted, “Yes! We haven’t been allowed outside for days!”

Savoji said that a few months ago Crummel had asked her 12-year-old son, Anthony, to “come inside and watch videos on biking.”

She said she denied her son permission, but she only recently learned about Crummel’s past.

“My son could have been his next victim,” she said.

Karen Arrieta, another neighbor, shouted to a real estate agent and a potential buyer of a nearby unit who happened to come by shortly after the arrest “It’s going to be a really nice neighborhood again soon.”

Neighbors said Crummel seemed to decorate with children in mind on the holidays, putting out elaborate Halloween, Christmas and Easter decorations.

While the protesters toasted themselves and police--crowing “We saved our sons!”--others in the neighborhood had mixed feelings.

“It feels a little bit like a witch hunt,” said Judy Baker, who lives a block away. “But I can’t blame people. You just don’t want to take a chance with children.”

Times staff writer Bonnie Hayes contributed to this article.