A former boys’ choir vocal coach accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in Orange County and fleeing the country more than a decade ago to avoid trial made his initial appearance Monday before a judge in Santa Ana.
Roger Alan Giese, 43, was tracked down in England in 2012 thanks to a tip generated by an “America’s Most Wanted” episode about his disappearance, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.
After years of fighting extradition, Giese was returned to the Southland and booked into Orange County Jail on Friday. During his court appearance Monday, his arraignment was rescheduled for Aug. 29, and his bail was confirmed at $60 million.
The defendant’s attorney, Lisa Eyanson, declined comment outside the courtroom.
Giese met the alleged victim, who was 13 at the time, in his capacity as a vocal coach for the All-American Boys Chorus in Buena Park in 1998, according to the FBI. He is accused of sexually abusing the boy from May 1998 through May 2002, Buena Park police Sgt. Mike Lovchik.
Giese “befriended” the family through their church and told the teen he was involved in an elite military unit called the Delta Force, and that he could get the victim into the unit if he supplied various “bodily fluids,” Lovchik said.
The family came forward with a complaint in September 2002 and authorities served a search warrant on the defendant’s residence in Irvine, Lovchik said.
Giese was arrested and charged with five counts of lewd acts on a child, 10 counts of lewd acts on a child 14 to 15, three counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object of a minor and one count of oral copulation of a minor. He also faces a sentencing enhancement for substantial sexual conduct with a child.
He was freed on $200,000 bail in 2003, and by 2007 he had disappeared. A judge issued an arrest warrant on March 12, 2007.
A jury pool had been assembled and attorneys were close to beginning jury selection before he failed to show in court, according to court records.
An Orange County district attorney’s investigator contacted the Department of Homeland Security on March 13, 2007, when records showed Giese had caught a flight two days earlier from Charlotte, North Carolina, to the Cayman Islands, according to an FBI search warrant affidavit.
Giese was found six years ago in Hampshire, working for a public relations firm and living under a different name with a woman who did not know his true identity, Senior Deputy District Attorney Erin Rowe said.
Prosecutors “endured many hurdles” legally in their effort to extradite Giese, Rackauckas said. British authorities were concerned that Orange County prosecutors would seek to have Giese committed to a state mental health facility indefinitely as a sexually violent predator following any prison term if convicted — a move officials in the UK consider to be a human rights violation. So Orange County authorities had to ensure British officials that Giese’s alleged crimes did not quality for the SVP designation, Rowe said.
The SVP petition is handled in criminal court with prosecutors, but the legal proceedings follow civil court rules. A sexually violent predator can win a trial seeking release from custody when mental health professionals agree the defendant is suitable for release. The SVP petition is generally reserved for defendants with multiple victims and a lengthy history of sex crimes.
Giese’s challenge of his extradition failed in June in Britain’s high court, the BBC reported, and in July, the court refused to let him appeal the decision.
As Giese fought extradition he was out of custody while being monitored by British authorities. Rackauckas told reporters that when he was found, he was doing work for a church, but there was no evidence Giese committed any similar crimes in the United Kingdom.
“It does appear that he might have had similar access (to potential victims), but we don’t know that he was involved in the commission of any crimes there,” Rackauckas said.
The alleged Orange County victim was “relieved” to hear Giese had been extradited, Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Reed said.
“This was long-delayed justice for him,” she said. “He is relieved there is an end in sight for this.”
Giese faces 23 years and four months in prison if convicted.