A 59-year-old Placer County man with a history of child molestation was convicted by a jury today on four felony counts of committing lewd acts upon a 6-year-old girl.
Donald Bruce Vechik is now facing 25 years to life in state prison when he returns for sentencing before Placer County Superior Court Judge Mark S. Curry on July 17, according to Art Campos, Placer County District Attorney public information officer.
Placer County prosecutors Jennifer Miszkewycz and Jeff Wood said evidence in the case showed that Vechik, who served a prison sentence for a similar crime in Kern County, befriended a woman and her six-year-old daughter in the Cisco Grove area in 2008.
Vechik and the woman were neighbors at a motel and the defendant offered to watch the daughter and to give her rides to school.
However, school officials checked out a report about the defendant’s background and discovered that he was a registered sex offender, Miszkewycz said.
The county’s Child Protective Services investigated and subsequent interviews with the child indicated that she had been inappropriately touched by the defendant, Miszkewycz said.
During the trial, Vechik’s attorney tried to convince the jury that there were inconsistencies in the child’s interviews with the investigators and in her testimony on the witness stand.
However, co-prosecutor Wood maintained in his closing statement that the girl’s story about the inappropriate touching had remained fairly consistent throughout the investigation and the trial.
Vechik was prosecuted on five charges of lewd conduct upon the child. The jury found him not guilty on one of the counts.
The jury also found that two special allegations — that the defendant committed the lewd acts with a prior sex offense and that he had served prison time — were true, enhancing the amount of prison time he will serve, Miszkewycz said.
.........Sarah Tofte
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