A former school bus driver from Twentynine Palms charged with lewd acts with a child, possession of child pornography, and using a concealed camera was ordered to stand trial after a preliminary hearing Thursday. Managing editor Tami Roleff was in court yesterday, and files this report…
Sheriff’s investigators told of finding a camera’s memory card in which they allege Alex Gomez, 57, secretly shot videos up the skirts of young girls, and fondled a 4-year-old girl on his bus. According to Detective Heidi Hague, the memory card was found by a restaurant worker, who notified Desert Hot Springs police, who notified the FBI, who then notified the Morongo Basin Sheriff’s station. (It’s not clear if the card was found in Desert Hot Springs, or if the restaurant employee who found it lives in Desert Hot Springs.) Somewhere along the way, the FBI lost the original memory card, although it had made a copy of the contents on a CD, which it had given to Detective Hague.
Hague said Victim #1 was a 4-year-old developmentally disabled girl. She said the video showed Gomez putting his hand on the inside of her thigh, moving it up under her shorts or/dress and wiggling his fingers, and nearly touching her nipple. The videos were then shown, but only the judge, lawyers and witnesses were allowed in the courtroom during the viewing.
Back in open court, Detective Steve Everhart testified that he served a search warrant at the home of Alex Gomez in Twentynine Palms. Everhart described a CD found at Gomez’s home of Victim #2, labeled “Alexus White Panties” and “Nice,” which he said were four videos of students on the school bus taken from below, looking up skirts or shorts. He said deputies also found CDs in a closet which had more videos from Gomez’s bus, and a CD with 26 photos of child pornography. Everhart added that he sent sanitized photos to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which determined that 11 of the photos were known cases of child pornography, and the center confirmed that in nine of the 11 photos, the children depicted were between the ages of 3 and 13.
In closing statements, Gomez’s attorney, David Greenberg, disputed that the videos from the memory card were sexual in nature. “It’s overstated and exaggerated by the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department.. There’s not even a crime. There’s touching a thigh and touching a seatbelt.. The worst thing that I saw was the hand goes to a butt cheek.” Judge Rodney Cortez agreed that taken individually, the videos were innocuous. “I agree, Mr. Greenberg. Taken separately and apart, if we look at one video and then ignore the next video, and ignore the video that has the child porn on it. We see your client rubbing a leg, doing a wagging finger, but when you take that in context with the other videos and with the CD that has the child porn on it, the court’s left with considering all that together and the intent of your client and in that context, we have to consider all that together.” Cortez than held Gomez over for trial. (The photos were not taken by Gomez nor did they depict local children.) Greenberg then presented the judge with 25 letters written by friends, co-workers, and children from Gomez’s school bus route, in a request to release Gomez from jail on his own recognizance. Alex Gomez will next appear in court May 21 to be formally arraigned on the charges, and for a hearing to reduce his $500,000 bail.
