Saddleback Child Care Worker Guilty of Sex Assault

A 28-year-old former Saddleback Valley Unified School District child care worker, already convicted nearly four years ago of sexually assaulting a boy he was babysitting, was convicted today of molesting two boys in the school program.

Scott Andrew Christensen of Rancho Santa Margarita, who worked in the after-school program for about six years, wept after hearing the verdicts. Christensen, who is scheduled to be sentenced June 1, faces up to 61 years to life in prison.

Christensen was convicted Thursday of three felony counts of lewd acts on a child younger than 14, and the jury also found true sentencing enhancement allegations of substantial sexual conduct with a child and committing sex acts against multiple victims.

Christensen was previously convicted in March 2008 of two felony counts of lewd acts on a 6-year-old boy; a mistrial was declared on charges involving a second victim when jurors could not reach verdicts.

Christensen was convicted of the charges on which the first jury deadlocked and for molesting a third victim who stepped forward after the first trial.

Christensen's attorney, Gary Pohlson, declined comment. In his , he told jurors Christensen did not contest that he sexually assaulted the boy he was babysitting in 2006, but denied he molested the other two boys during "movie time" in The Learning Connection program at in Rancho Santa Margarita.

One of the boys molested during "movie time," when the lights were dimmed, ran to the bathroom to wash his hands and sat away from his teacher when he returned, Deputy District Attorney Nagy Morcos said.

The molestation happened sometime between May 2000 and August 2004, Morcos said. The boy did not tell anyone until he was 14 when his sister asked him if he was a virgin, the prosecutor said.

"He didn't know how to answer that," so he told his sister about the molestation, the prosecutor said.

The victim, who is now 17, traveled from Ohio, where his family now lives, to testify.

The second victim did not testify in the trial. That boy's parents didn't want him to go back on the stand because it would be too emotionally traumatic, so Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary Paer ruled before the trial started that jurors could instead hear a reading of his testimony in the first trial, Morcos said.

The child Christensen was convicted of sexually assaulting told his mother that the defendant performed oral sex on him and then had him do the same to Christensen, Morcos said.

"He told me this would give me magic powers," the prosecution quotes the boy as telling his mother.

Christensen faced up to 16 years in prison for the charges he was convicted of in the first trial. Today's convictions make him eligible for an additional 45 years, plus a life term, Morcos said.

Jurors deliberated all day Wednesday and two hours today before reaching verdicts.

—Paul Anderson, City News Service