O.C. Man’s Fight Is Not Over Yet

An Orange County church volunteer has been ordered to complete a 12-year Mexican prison sentence in a controversial child sex-abuse case, but remains free while he appeals the ruling to a Mexican federal court.

The ruling, while viewed as an incremental step in the case, caught David Cathcart by surprise, he said Friday, and renewed fears that he might have to return to the Mexican prison he thought he had left behind.

“I’m very concerned,” Cathcart said from the Aliso Viejo apartment he shares with his girlfriend. “I am concerned not only for myself but for my family.”

Cathcart, 60, was released in May after 6 1/2 years in an Ensenada prison when a state judge in Mexico overturned his 1994 conviction on charges that he had sex with children housed at the Door of Faith orphanage near Ensenada.

Judge Marta Flores Trejo ruled that the accusations against Cathcart by four boys were false and coerced by an orphanage director. The boys later recanted their statements.

Last month, a state-level appeals court in Mexicali overruled Flores and ordered Cathcart to finish the sentence. He immediately appealed, and a federal judge said Cathcart could remain free while the case was considered, according to his lawyer, William Bollard of Irvine.

At the time of his conviction, Cathcart was the liaison between St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Laguna Niguel and the orphanage, supported by a network of mostly Southern California Christians.

Rosa Isela Arce, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in Ensenada, said the state appeals court ruled that Flores erred by not “giving judicial weight to the multitude of evidence” against Cathcart.

“The court said there was plenty of proof that Cathcart committed the crimes he was convicted of,” Arce said. “He is ordered to return to Mexico to finish serving the remainder of his sentence.”

But Arce said Cathcart’s federal appeal makes it unlikely he will be returned to Mexico any time soon.

“The new appeal will take time,” she said. “It’s too early to talk about extradition.”

Bollard estimated that it would be at least several weeks before the federal court ruled and said that either side could then try to appeal to Mexico’s Supreme Court.

If Cathcart loses in the federal courts, Mexico will probably seek his extradition under a treaty with the United States. Should that happen, Mexican officials said, Cathcart would be able to contest the legality of the extradition request in U.S. courts, further delaying his return.

Bollard said he expects the case to end with the pending federal decision, since the case does not involve the kinds of broad issues usually necessary to get the Supreme Court’s attention.

And although he and Cathcart remain confident that they will win, Bollard said it has been a difficult turn in a case now in its seventh year.

“This is all fairly upsetting for him. He feels like he’s on a roller-coaster ride,” Bollard said. “But we’ve assured him that this matter is in the [Mexican] federal court system, where it needs to be.”

Cathcart said he has received two death threats since his release and has grown bitter at a Mexican judicial system that from his view is hounding an innocent man.

“I’ve tried to let it go, tried to get on with my life,” Cathcart said. “This is America, and I am supposed to be free. I’m not supposed to be afraid to go out and walk down the street.”

Bollard said he had expected the most recent ruling and dismissed it as local politics. With the appeal now in the federal system, Bollard said, he expects Cathcart’s release to be upheld.

“We feel comfortable, keeping in mind that the body that just ruled is a state court, which we believe is heavily influenced by all the factors that initially put Mr. Cathcart in jail,” Bollard said.

Cathcart and his supporters have long maintained that the charges against him were trumped up by the politically connected former orphanage director, Gabriel Diego Garcia, with whom Cathcart had argued over how donations from U.S. backers were being spent.

Diego has repeatedly denied misusing funds or orchestrating the accusations against Cathcart.