Trial Nears End for Felon Accused of Molesting Relative in Pinyon Pines

Trial Nears End for Felon Accused of Molesting Relative in Pinyon Pines

by Contributing Editor

Closing arguments are scheduled Tuesday in the trial of a 41-year-old felon accused of molesting an underage relative for more than eight years in the San Jacinto Mountain community of Pinyon Pines.

Stanford James Stelle III of Pinyon Pines, who was arrested in 2015, allegedly sexually assaulted the girl from 2003, when she was 5 years old, until 2012, when she was 13.

The defendant remains behind bars in lieu of $1 million bail at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.

Stelle faces a potential life sentence if convicted of six counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, one count of committing sex acts on a child under 10 years old and three counts each of oral copulation on a minor and lewd acts on a child under 14 years by using force.

Trial got underway Nov. 30. The alleged victim in the case, now in her early 20s, was the first witness to be called for the prosecution. She cried on the stand as she detailed the alleged molestation, which she said occurred on a weekly basis for years in Pinyon Pines.

“He told me it was normal, that it happened in every family,” she said.

The defendant took the stand in his own defense on Dec. 9, where he testified that the allegations against him stemmed from a blackmail scheme perpetrated by the alleged victim’s methamphetamine-addicted mother.

“She told me I could afford $100,000 because it was going to cost a lot more than that if I went to jail,” Stelle said.

The defendant has refuted the allegations of sexual assault.

John Patrick Dolan, Stelle’s defense attorney, argued the victim’s mother sought — unsuccessfully — to extort vast sums of money from his client because he is the beneficiary of a trust worth a considerable amount of money.

Deputy District Attorney Gypsy Yeager alleged in her opening statement that the abuse came to light when the victim was 16 years old. Yeager said the girl and her mother were having a conversation two days before Thanksgiving 2014 about her interest in dating an older man, who a sheriff’s investigator said was about 20 years older than her.

The mother eventually alerted law enforcement after several counseling sessions with the victim, defendant and other family members, the prosecutor said.

Two of the alleged crimes occurred in a shower. While the defendant did not specifically admit to molesting the young girl while on the stand, he did admit to taking a shower with her once.

“I remember taking a shower and having (the victim) come in the shower,” he said.

According to prosecutors, she was 5 years old when the shower incidents occurred.

A declaration in support of an arrest warrant prepared by a Riverside County sheriff’s investigator said that in March 2015, after the molestation had stopped, the victim and Stelle spoke over the phone in a recorded conversation, when he admitted to molesting her. During the call, he allegedly said he would “take it all back” if he could and said “he was seeking help from a doctor for his problems,” the document alleges. He was charged 10 days after the call, court records show.

One of the last acts occurred during a birthday party for a 91-year-old relative, court papers say.

Stelle has a previous marijuana-related felony conviction, according to his attorney.

He was previously found mentally incompetent to stand trial and was transferred to a state mental hospital for treatment. Criminal proceedings were restarted last year after the court found his competency had been restored.

The defendant remains behind bars on $1 million bail at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.

Stelle’s trial is one of the few slated to go forward for at least the next several weeks in Riverside County amid an order barring new jury trials from beginning due to a second surge in COVID-19 cases.

The order, set to remain in effect until Dec. 31, forbids new jury trials from starting, but does not affect ones already in progress, which will be addressed on a case-by-case basis, according to the Riverside County Superior Court.

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All credit goes to Contributing Editor
Originally published on https://mynewsla.com