Man Pleads Guilty to Lewd Acts With Girl

SAN FERNANDO —  A Castaic man who was turned in by his daughter after she discovered an incriminating videotape pleaded guilty Wednesday to 11 counts of forcible lewd acts upon a child.

Daniel Douglas Larson, 50, was immediately returned to Los Angeles County Jail, where he has been held since September in lieu of $1.8 million bail.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge John Murphy set sentencing for Feb. 13. Larson faces 35 to 80 years in state prison.

Larson was arrested in September after his 17-year-old daughter found a videotape in the family’s Castaic home depicting her father performing sexual acts with three girls between the ages of 5 and 7.

In exchange for Larson’s guilty plea for crimes committed against one of the three girls, prosecutors agreed to dismiss 21 counts of child molestation and oral copulation involving the other two. However, those counts could be considered by the sentencing judge.

Larson answered affirmatively to each count read by Deputy Dist. Atty. Joe Wiermortz.

“Those counts represent the most egregious conduct,” Wiermortz said after the preliminary hearing.

Larson could be eligible for parole within eight years, prosecutors said. If released, he would have to register as a convicted sex offender with local law enforcement authorities.

After his arrest, Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators searched Larson’s home and found an address book containing the name of one of the victims, said Det. John Mayfield of the Juvenile Investigations Bureau in Lancaster. The identities of the other two girls were never discovered and Larson refused to disclose them.

Larson befriended the known victim’s mother by agreeing to support her financially and to baby-sit her daughter while she worked a night shift, Mayfield said. The girl is now 9 and lives in Los Angeles.

Larson initially told detectives that a prostitute brought him the girl and agreed to deliver other girls to his home from Northridge and Canoga Park, Mayfield said. Larson claimed the woman charged him $200 to $300 for finding the girls, and she shared the money with the victims’ families.

Initially, authorities believed much of what Larson said because he provided them with specific information about the victim and her family, although he refused to give the name of the woman he claimed was procuring his victims.

“Based on the facts that we have now, there is no evidence to substantiate that . . . there was a middle woman,” Mayfield said.

Mayfield said investigators are still seeking information about the two other girls on the videotape.