People v. Fiset CA4/3

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

In September 2010, then 81-year-old defendant was charged with having committed a lewd act with a child less than 14 years of age (§ 288, subd. (a); count 1) on June 21, 2009, and two counts of annoying or molesting a child under age 18 (§ 647.6, subd. (a)(1); counts 2, 3) on September 29, 2009.

1 All further statutory references are to the Penal Code.

2 The trial court found not true allegations defendant possessed photographic equipment in violation of another term of his probation.

2 According to testimony at the preliminary examination, during a Father’s Day 2009 celebration at defendant’s home, he took his then six-year-old great- granddaughter into a tent pitched in his backyard and repeatedly tried to pull her pants down, and he touched and squeezed her vaginal area over her clothes. Then, he told her not to tell anyone what had happened. During roughly the same time period, defendant sent numerous letters to two teenage girls, some of which expressed defendant’s desire to marry the girls and have sex with them. Following the preliminary hearing, defendant pled guilty to counts 1 and 2 on the condition count 3 be dismissed and defendant…