California serial molester gets life in prison

updated 7:22 p.m. ET Jan. 29, 2007

SAN JOSE, Calif. - A man prosecutors said was one of the nation’s most prolific child molesters was sentenced Monday to 152 years in prison for abusing two 12-year-old boys.

Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller, 65, who also had been convicted of sexual assaults in several states over three decades, was sentenced to the maximum term on 11 felony counts of child molestation and one misdemeanor charge of child pornography possession.

Schwartzmiller represented himself during his trial last year but asked for an attorney to represent him during the sentencing phase.

During the nearly three-week trial, prosecutor Steve Fein showed jurors a map of the “places and decades where the defendant has molested young boys.” It included an estimated 100 accusers dating to 1969 in eight U.S. states, Mexico and Brazil.

When Schwartzmiller was arrested in June 2005, investigators found a memoir describing abuse, binders full of child pornography and 1,500 notebook pages with headings including “blond boys,” “no, but yes boys,” and “best of the best, 13 and under.”

Schwartzmiller, who acted as his own attorney during his October trial, told jurors that he was innocent and maligned by a society that doesn’t accept men who love boys.

During his testimony, Schwartzmiller said the memoir and notebook entries were fiction.

He blamed roommate Frederick Everts — also a convicted child molester — for the child porn. Schwartzmiller also said he could not have molested the two San Jose boys, who are cousins, because he was either at a construction job or bedridden with a bad back at the time.

Although police say Schwartzmiller appears to have spent much of the past three decades years in California, he has also been arrested on child molestation charges in New York, Idaho, Oregon, Arkansas and Washington. He has lived in Nevada, Texas and Washington.

Schwartzmiller has used aliases including Dean Harmon and Dean Miller, authorities said. He apparently gained the trust of victims and parents by working as a home renovation contractor. He didn’t register as a sex offender so he did not appear in the “Megan’s Law” databases in California or other states, police said.

Police said Schwartzmiller befriended the two San Jose boys with gifts, invited them to his house for video games and movies, and molested them.

Judge Edward Lee said that despite Schwartzmiller’s legal savvy in getting some previous charges dismissed, he will spend the rest of his days filing appeals from a prison cell.

“For all that above-average intelligence and charm, I have a couple of faults (with you) — an English teacher might call them tragic faults,” Lee said. “You have no empathy for your victims; that’s not particularly unusual. And you cannot see yourself as others see you.”

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