Doctor gets 58 years in prison for molestation
By Monterey Herald and Virginia Hennessey |
PUBLISHED: June 19, 2007 at 12:00 am | UPDATED: September 12, 2018 at 12:00 am
A judge sentenced a former Prunedale doctor to 58 years in prison Monday for molesting his young stepdaughter, rejecting the man"s argument that he received an unfair trial and fled the country because of it.
Prosecutor Stephanie Hulsey also dismissed James Daly"s claim. She said the 66-year-old man had long planned his flight from justice, having obtained an Irish passport months before his trial began in late March 2005. He surrendered his American passport as a condition of his release on bail pending his trial.
Hulsey told Judge Russell Scott that Daly deserved the maximum 58-year sentence not only because of the aggravated nature of the crimes, but because Daly forced the victim to relive her abuse at his trial, even while he was planning to flee, then called her a liar after she told her story.
Defense attorney Larry Biegel argued strenuously that Hulsey was allowed to present inadmissible evidence at Daly"s trial, while the defendant was denied his right to challenge the victim"s credibility. He said he would appeal to a higher court for a new trial and that his client will either win that appeal or die in prison.
The victim testified at trial that Daly began molesting her when she was 4, shortly after he married her mother. The molestations, which progressed to rape, continued until she was 12, she said. Daly also medicated the girl with Prozac, according to testimony, and refused to allow her to have counseling when teachers at her Carmel Valley elementary school found her crying and suicidal in a bathroom on the school campus.
Jurors convicted Daly in absentia in April 2005 two days after he failed to show up for closing arguments. An international manhunt led investigators from Canada to Ireland and eventually to South America, where Daly was arrested by Interpol on a ferry entering Uruguay from Buenos Aires, Argentina, in October 2005.
Daly told a probation officer before Monday"s sentencing that he fled because he wasn"t receiving a fair trial and figured he was "64 and had never seen Southern Ireland, Madrid, Spain, Paris, Italy or Buenos Aires … had nothing to lose and jumped bail."
He said he never feared his capture during his traveling and "lived for the moment."
"I will be dead in 10 to 15 years," he said. "You only live once."
Biegel was emotional in his plea for a new trial Monday, once apologizing for raising his voice. He said there was no corroborating evidence for the girl"s claims and that Judge Scott had hamstrung the defense by refusing to allow him to attack her credibility on cross examination.
The jury was never told, Biegel said, that the girl recanted her original accusations when she was 8 years old, saying she lied to "get my way." Without that and other disturbing information, he said, the jury was not allowed to decide if the abuse caused the troubled nature, or that the troubled nature triggered false accusations.
Biegel, a veteran attorney who taught Scott in law school, said he"d never filed a motion for a new trial before and found it "daunting" to challenge the judge in this case. However, he said, Scott"s rulings denied Daly the "fundamental right" to confront and cross-examine his accuser.
"I think you made some serious errors when you denied the trial process and denied Dr. Daly a fair trial," he said. "There was something that permeated this trial that I"ve never seen before."
He also argued that Scott had permitted inadmissible evidence by allowing Daly"s first wife to testify that Daly once told her he"d been molested as a child by his mother and had thought about molesting his biological daughter.
Scott rejected both claims and said there was plenty of corroborating evidence to support the charges against Daly.
He said the criminal investigation was not initiated by the girl"s claims when she was 4, but by an inadvertent slip to a Maryland social worker when she was a teenager. That "mandatory reporter" then called authorities over the objections of the "horrified" mother and daughter.
More than anything, Scott said, the case was corroborated by Daly"s own statements when the girl made a "pretext" call with Maryland authorities after that report. The girl asked Daly why he had had sex with her.
In the taped telephone call, Daly explained to the girl that he and her mother had marital problems that left him lonely.
"So basically, you became my companion and substitution for closeness that I should have had with Mom," he said. "You became basically a replacement for Mom … a love object."
"And that," Scott said, "is corroboration."
Virginia Hennessey can be reached at 753-6751 or vhennessey@montereyherald.com
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