Ex-Officer Pleads No Contest in Rape Case : Courts: Sentencing is set for a man who claims he suffers from mental problems. The case involves an Irvine girl.

SANTA ANA —  Claiming that he suffers from serious psychological problems, a former Beverly Hills police officer pleaded no contest Friday to raping an 11-year-old girl at knifepoint in her Irvine home last year.

Steven Rush McCoy, who repeatedly denied the charges last year in a jailhouse interview, did not contest the felony counts of forcibly molesting and raping a child and burglary.

The no-contest pleas came at a routine trial-setting hearing Friday afternoon, after McCoy had lost a bid to persuade a jury last November that he was incompetent and shouldn’t stand trial. He will be sentenced at a hearing scheduled for July 12.

Defense attorney Jan Heger said McCoy was manic-depressive, but he decided to plead no contest, the equivalent of guilty, because a jury probably would not be sympathetic to his mental state.

Irvine police said McCoy, 37, of Irvine, posed as a deliveryman with a package on March 26, 1990, and persuaded the child, who had stayed home sick, to open the door to her apartment in University Town Center.

Police said they found evidence linking the crime to McCoy, who lived in the same apartment complex as the girl, when they searched his apartment. Police said they found clothes belonging to the victim and a stained sheet believed to be from the attack. Also, the girl identified him from a photo.

Included in evidence seized from McCoy’s apartment was a book entitled “How to Assert an Insanity Defense.”

The prosecutor, Debbie Lloyd, was unavailable for comment Friday night.

In an interview with The Times at the Orange County Jail in March, 1990, McCoy proclaimed, “I am not guilty,” and asserted that “whoever did this was an animal.”

McCoy acknowledged in that interview that he was suffering psychological problems recently, but said they were linked to a drug prescribed for stress, adding that “I’m a danger to no one.”

At a competency hearing in November, a psychiatrist testifying for the defense said McCoy was suffering from manic depression and hallucinations. But another psychiatrist for the prosecution testified that he was competent, and a jury agreed.

Irvine police said that they believe McCoy used his police training to stalk the child, commit the crime and then try to hide it.

McCoy, a former Sunday school teacher and divorced father of three children, joined the Beverly Hills Police Department as a part-time reserve officer in 1976. He became a full-time officer in 1978, only to be fired seven months later. Beverly Hills police refused to disclose the reason for the dismissal, but McCoy said it was because of a disability from an off-duty motorcycle accident.

After that, he worked at various investment companies as a broker from 1986 to 1989.

McCoy’s wife filed for divorce in 1989. She alleged in court documents that her husband had “psychotic” mental problems. His former roommate also said McCoy suffered severe mood swings.