Jury hears from girl who says sex offender molested her
A 43-year-old convicted sex offender, who could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted of molesting two girls, touched one of them on more than one occasion while tutoring her in reading, the teen testified today.
Horace Mann Williams allegedly molested the girl, now 17 years old, while she sat on his lap or next to him on a sofa, practicing her reading, on various occasions between 1999 and 2000, she told a Riverside County Superior Court jury.
Williams, who spent six years in prison for a prior sexual molestation conviction, faces a maximum of 335 years behind bars if convicted of molesting her and another girl.
The teen, identified in court only as Breeana, said she about 9 years old at the time of the molestation. She said she was living with her mother, a drug user, and a younger brother in Hemet at the time and now lives in Orange County with her father.
The teen’s mother had hired the defendant to help her with her schoolwork because she was behind and had been put into special classes.
Williams allegedly touched the other girl — then 13 years old — while he watched her at his Hemet apartment after either he or his wife picked her up from school.
He allegedly molested the teen on four to 10 occasions during the summer of 2005, according to a declaration in support of an arrest warrant filed with the court.
The court papers state that the girl’s mother knew Williams was a registered sex offender, but told authorities that the defendant convinced her he had been falsely convicted.
Williams faces a total of 11 counts of lewd and lascivious behavior with a child under 14 and one count of penetration with a foreign object, along with sentence-enhancing allegations of having more than one victim and having a ``strike’’ on his record.
—From news services