Man Pleads Guilty to Fondling 5 Girls at O.C. Fair, Gets 8-Year Prison Term

SANTA ANA —  A former carnival worker and convicted child molester was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to fondling five teen-age girls as they made their way through the haunted house attraction at the Orange County Fair.

In a recent jailhouse interview, Richard Allen Lee, 42, denied that he deliberately touched any young girls while working at the fair in July. But on Friday, Lee pleaded guilty to five counts of child molestation and was immediately sentenced by Orange County Superior Court Judge James K. Turner.

Lee was originally charged with three counts of child molestation after his July 16 arrest, Deputy Dist. Atty. Nancy Du Pont said. Two additional child molestation charges were added after two more victims came forward and said they were also fondled, Du Pont said. The victims ranged in age from 10 to 13, she said.

“He apparently liked to hang out there on his breaks,” Du Pont said, referring to the fair attraction known as Cactus Jack’s Haunted Shack.

Deputy Public Defender Marri Derby said her client could have faced a maximum sentence of more than 20 years in prison but agreed to plead guilty as part of an agreement with the judge.

“I’m not condoning any actions, but I want to say that Mr. Lee is not a monster,” Derby said outside of court, adding that her client wanted to plead guilty to spare the girls and their families any further “problems.”

Lee said during an interview that he was in the haunted house when the three girls--apparently frightened by a man dressed up as a ghoul with a chain saw--ran into him. He said the girls may have believed he was groping them when he was just putting up his hands to steady himself.

The girls, however, were screaming as they left the attraction and told authorities that a man had grabbed them in a darkened corridor. A carnival worker held Lee until authorities arrived.

Lee has two prior convictions for child molestation that date back to the 1970s. He told authorities he is a transient who had been traveling with carnivals for the past 14 years.