A 61-year-old convicted sex offender pleaded guilty Monday to soliciting an underage boy in Newport Beach and was immediately sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
David James Hanggie pleaded guilty to one felony count of child annoyance with a previous sex conviction. As part of a plea deal with prosecutors, four other felony counts involving four other victims were dismissed.
Hanggie used social media and attended high school football games to try to solicit underage victims in 2024 and last year, according to court records.
He was convicted in April 1994 in Los Angeles County of lewd acts on a child, according to court records. He also has a prior strike for kidnapping out of Fresno County in 1989, according to court records.
Hanggie was declared a sexually violent predator and was sent to a state mental health institution when he was charged in June 2009 with attempted murder for stabbing a fellow patient at Coalinga State Hospital in the back with a handmade knife, according to court records.
Hanggie was sentenced to 24 years in prison as his two prior strikes were not imposed.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin was prepared to do the same in a plea deal offer to the defendant until he heard from the victims Monday.
“You’re having a bad afternoon,” Yellin told the defendant as he asked him if he wanted to follow through the plea deal for 25 years to life.
“You thought it was going a certain way and now it’s going a different way,” Yellin added.
But the judge said it was “justice to have finality” in the case as it was resolved Monday.