Donald Bruce Vechik - Repeat Sex Offender - 75 year sentence

A 59-year-old man with a history of child molestation was sentenced today to 75 years to life in state prison by a Placer County judge.

Donald Bruce Vechik received the sentence from Superior Court Judge Mark S. Curry following a May 15 conviction by jury trial of four felony counts of committing lewd acts upon a six-year-old girl.

Before sending the defendant to prison, Curry noted that Vechik had a prior conviction for molesting his own daughter. He called Vechik a “threat to society” and a “predator who apparently cannot stop from molesting children.”

Vechik was prosecuted by Jeff Wood and Jennifer Miszkewycz, deputy district attorneys for Placer County.

“It was an appropriate sentence based on the conduct of the defendant and his history of molestation,” Wood said.

Miszkewycz said Vechik, because of his criminal history and a prior strike for child molestation, will be required to serve 85 percent of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

“This would amount to nearly 65 years in prison,” she said.

During trial, Wood and Miszkewycz established that Vechik 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, discovered that he was a registered sex offender and notified Placer County Child Protective Services.

An investigation by that agency and interviews with the child indicated that she had been inappropriately touched by the defendant, Miszkewycz said.

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 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. The findings enhanced the amount of prison time to be served.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte