Global Courant 2023-04-27 22:19:28
The Santa Monica Police Department allowed a civilian employee to volunteer in a youth program — where he went on to molest more than 200 children — despite a 1991 background check showing he had been arrested as a teenager for molesting a toddler he babysat, according to a report reviewed by The Times.
Beginning in the late 1980s, Eric Uller preyed on the most vulnerable children in Santa Monica’s predominantly Latino neighborhoods, often traveling in an unmarked police vehicle or his personal SUV, which was outfitted with police gear, according to court documents. It took Uller decades to be exposed before he was finally arrested and charged in 2018.
This week, the Santa Monica City Council approved a $122.5 million payout to settle hundreds of claims against the city’s top systems analyst, who died by suicide before making his first court appearance. Total settlements now exceed $229 million — the most expensive sexual payoff by a single offender for any municipality.
Revelations police knew of the teen’s arrest raises the question as to why the Santa Monica Police Department missed repeated warnings that Uller was a predator.
Mayor Gleam Davis called the abuse “a sad chapter in the city’s history.” But when announcing the settlement, neither she nor other officials revealed that a background check in 1991 revealed that Uller, then a new police dispatcher, had been charged with sexual assault as a 14-year-old.
According to the report, conducted by a Santa Monica Police Department background investigator, Uller revealed that he was arrested as a minor. He told the detective he was accused of molesting a 4-year-old boy he was babysitting.
Uller told the detective that he had spoken to counsel and that he was never charged.
The investigator sent an interdepartmental memo detailing his findings to a police sergeant overseeing staffing and training on November 12, 1991 — nine months after Uller formally became a dispatcher.
The investigator also contacted the Pacific Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, which shows a 1983 juvenile booking record for Uller on suspicion of child abuse. After his arrest, he was released to his parents.
According to documents reviewed by The Times, Uller, then 23, used to be asked for an explanation of his arrest. He told the investigator that the boy’s mother accused him of assault because of the way he “touched the child or something.” Uller said it was a long time ago and it was hard to remember, “because nothing happened.”
Uller’s father, a prominent Santa Monica physician, supported his son in an interview with the investigator.
Uller’s stepmother, however, told the investigator she was concerned about what had happened and didn’t know if Uller had done anything, but hoped “it was an adolescent phase and he had grown out of it.”
His father, Robert Uller, described the boy in question as the son of a business partner. He told the detective that after his son was arrested, they hired a psychologist, who said there was no evidence of sexual assault and that “Eric was fine, just a little immature.”
The investigator said in the report that he had not contacted the boy’s family, who was 12 at the time.
But after learning from the LAPD crime report that the “incident described was more than a touching molestation, as described by Eric,” the detective re-interviewed the young dispatcher.
Uller “seemed very concerned that the allegations against him were so serious, even if they were untrue,” the researcher wrote. He noted that Uller’s credentials spoke highly of him, and city officials described him as a good worker with extensive computer knowledge.
At the time of the background check, Uller had already been working as a staff member for the Police Activities League for two years. He went on to volunteer for the PAL program for at least ten years.
In fact, according to numerous lawsuits filed against the city, Uller was already grooming, sexually assaulting and raping dozens of boys on the program.
“We need a new state law to make state officials more guilty when they overlook repeated reports of child sexual abuse,” said attorney Brian Claypool, who represented more than 80 victims in the lawsuits. “These are mandated reporters, and the current law is not enough.”
Santa Monica officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the disclosure of the background report, which was the first of many warnings repeatedly ignored before Uller’s arrest.
A Santa Monica police sergeant grew suspicious of Uller’s behavior with a boy between 1991 and 1993 and launched an investigation, according to a 2018 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department report reviewed by The Times.
Michelle Cardiel, a PAL employee from 1990 to 1998, told a sheriff’s detective that “the kid went everywhere with Eric, and it seemed strange.”
Cardiel told sheriff’s investigators that a boy told her around 1995 that Uller had volunteered to help “clean his penis because his dad is a doctor.” Cardiel reported the incident to Santa Monica Police Officer Jay Trisler, who was then assigned to the PAL program, and Trisler said he would investigate. She also told her PAL boss, Patty Loggins, who told Cardiel she would be written up if she continued to spread workplace gossip, according to the sheriff’s report.
The next day, Cardiel said, Uller approached her and said the interaction he’d had with the boy was inappropriate and begged her not to talk about it again.
Neither Trisler nor Loggins have returned messages for comment.
In an interview with The Times, Cardiel recalled two officers who interviewed the boy at the time saying “There had been a misunderstanding” and Uller never touched the child.
Attorney Brian Claypool represented more than 80 victims in a sexual assault settlement with Santa Monica.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
In an affidavit obtained by The Times, a female detective from the Sheriff’s Juvenile Division, whose identity is withheld in this report, said she was suspicious of Uller, noting that he “became too close to the boys both physically and emotionally.” with which I saw him.
“I thought Eric’s behavior and involvement with the boys was inappropriate, so I reported my concerns to my sergeant and my lieutenant,” the detective said, pointing out that her superiors had told her it was none of her business.
She said she also discovered that Uller had had boys at his house and taken them on weekend trips. When she told him to stop this behavior, he ignored her, she said in the complaint.
According to the 2018 sheriff’s report, several former Santa Monica associates told detectives they reported Uller’s misconduct.
Retired Santa Monica Police Department Lieutenant Greg Slaughter, who headed the department’s communications center where Uller was the lead systems analyst, said that one morning in the early 2000s, a supervisor turned on a computer for work and found child pornography appeared on the screen. Slaughter said he immediately ordered an investigation, leading to Uller, but was never interviewed about the allegations.
Slaughter told a sheriff’s investigator that Uller reported directly to the police chief, James Butts. “The ranking was overlooked on Eric’s behalf,” Slaughter said in the sheriff’s report.
Slaughter also said he witnessed Uller driving young boys “all over town” and reported it to his bosses. He said that after learning that Uller had “brought home a fully equipped, unmarked police vehicle,” he told the department’s chief of staff that such use was inappropriate.
Butts, who led the Santa Monica Police Department from 1991 to 2006 and is now mayor of Inglewood, said in an email to The Times on Tuesday that he was “never made aware of any allegations against Uller or anyone on the program.”
After starting out as a 911 dispatcher, Uller rose to become the chief systems analyst for the city’s information technology department, and in 2009 received the Santa Monica Rotary Club’s Public Service Award. He spent most of his career overhauling the 911 system, overseeing the city’s surveillance cameras, rebuilding the arrest and traffic violation databases, and building a crime mapping system .
Some of Uller’s victims recalled that he would even turn on the police’s lights and sirens as he drove them home, further cementing the idea that he was a cop working under the color of authority, documents corroborating the accounts of the summarize victims.
According to witness statements, Uller bribed some with $20 bills, trips to Lakers games or McDonald’s, and video games. Others he threatened, especially those who had run afoul of the law or whose family’s immigration status made them vulnerable.
“I couldn’t say anything because my family was going to jail,” said John AM Doe, one of the plaintiffs on the lawsuit who said he had been abused by Uller for two years. “It was like he could get away with whatever he wanted.”
Another victim said Uller began abusing him as a teenager after he was arrested by the Santa Monica Police Department. While the young man struggled with other run-ins with the law, he was forced to submit to sexual acts with Uller, according to his court claim files.
“The unspoken threat is that if I didn’t go with Eric, I would go to prison,” the man said in a recent court statement.
