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A school trustee and one-time Citizen of the Year was charged Friday with sexually molesting a child. One count of oral copulation with a minor under 18 was filed against Richard M. Boucher in West Orange County Municipal Court, Deputy District Attorney Mike Koski said. Boucher, 61, was arrested Feb. 28 by Huntington Beach police and booked for investigation of child molestation, said JoAnne Bonkowski, a city spokeswoman. He was released on his own recognizance. Police and district attorney's investigators would not release any other details about the case. "This whole thing has gotten me so upset," Boucher said at his home Friday night. Boucher said he suffers from heart problems and is preparing to enter a hospital next week for tests. He would not comment further on the charge against him. Boucher was elected to the Huntington Beach City School District board of trustees in 1985 and was employed by the city for 21 years. He was involved in scouting for 45 years and was a national vice chairman of the Catholic Scout Committee. He was named Citizen of the Year in 1983 by the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce. Koski said no date had been set for Boucher's arraignment. Boucher worked in Huntington Beach City Hall as an employee-relations coordinator, Bonkowski said. Before that, he worked as a surveyor for the Department of Public Works. A secretary to Huntington Beach City School District Superintendent Diana Peters said Boucher had retired from the city recently. She said the board was unaware of the police investigation until earlier this week. "I was deeply surprised and shocked when I learned of it," board member Karen O'Bric said. "None of us had any information about it." Pat Cohen, another trustee, described Boucher as a "wonderful person." "He's just a very likable person," Cohen said. The Rev. Alexander Manville of Saints Simon & Jude Church in Huntington Beach said Boucher is a "loyal and generous member of the parish" who worked Sunday mornings as an usher during Mass. School-board trustee resigns, faces child-molestation charge A Huntington Beach school-board trustee and one-time Citizen of the Year confessed to police last month that he sexually molested a child 60 or 70 times over eight years, according to court documents. Richard M. Boucher has pleaded not guilty to one felony count of oral copulation with a minor and a misdemeanor count of engaging in a lewd act in a public place. On March 18, Boucher formally resigned from his seat on the Huntington Beach City School District board of trustees. In a letter he asked to be read aloud to the board last week, Boucher said he was resigning because he did not wish to bring any more shame to the school district. He said the two weeks since he was accused of the molestation had been the unhappiest in his life and blamed the news media for treating him unfairly. The resignation became official March 18, when it was received by the county superintendent of schools, district officials said. Boucher was elected to the elementary school-district board in November 1985. Under state law, the district's remaining four board members now have 60 days to decide whether to appoint a successor or hold a special election to replace Boucher. Boucher, 61, was arrested Feb. 28 by Huntington Beach police and booked for investigation of child molestation, said JoAnne Bonkowski, a city spokeswoman. After first denying to police that he had been involved in the sexual molestations, Boucher reportedly spent a night of soul-searching then returned to confess that he had engaged in "a strange love affair" with a neighborhood boy from the time the child was 12. In the 44-page police report, Boucher stated he tried to end the affair many times, but was too weak to follow through. In the report, Boucher said he didn't know how he could have gotten involved in such a thing. Earlier, Boucher told reporters that he is suffering from heart problems and would enter the hospital soon for tests. He would not comment further on the charges against him. He could be sentenced to three years in prison if convicted. Boucher was elected to the Huntington Beach City School District Board of Trustees in 1985 and was employed by the city for 21 years. He was involved in Scouting for 45 years and was national vice chairman of the Catholic Scout Committee. He was named Citizen of the Year in 1983 by the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce. Boucher was arrested on suspicion of molestation after he made the confession on Feb. 28, but he was released on his own recognizance after a court order was signed by Judge Donald Dutcher. He has been allowed to remain free pending a March 31 preliminary hearing. After apology to victim, ex-school trustee gets 1-year molestation term Former Huntington Beach school trustee Richard Merle Boucher publicly apologized Monday to the neighborhood boy he molested for eight years, and then learned he would spend the next year in jail as punishment. In a brief statement before his sentencing, Boucher, 61, said, "I am sorry, truly sorry, for the victim. I have paid a tremendous penalty, and regardless of the outcome of this case, my penalty will continue for years and years and years." Superior Court Judge Luis Cardenas admitted he felt sorry for Boucher, who resigned from the school board after he was charged with child molestation. "But I feel more sorry for your victim," he said. Cardenas rejected defense attorney Bruce Colodny's plea for mercy, and told Boucher, "I can't let you walk out of this courtroom without an appropriate punishment." That punishment, Cardenas said, will include one year in the Orange County Jail, five years of supervised probation that Boucher will pay for, a requirement that he register as a sex offender once he is released from custody, an order that he pay restitution to the victim for the psychiatric care he is undergoing and a provision that he stay away from all children for five years. Boucher was handcuffed and taken to jail immediately. He pleaded guilty in March to a felony count of engaging in a sex act with a minor and a misdemeanor count of engaging in a lewd act in a public place. The misdemeanor count involves another neighborhood youngster. Boucher, in his statement Monday, also apologized to his wife of 35 years and his six sons. "I have given them sorrow, sorrow, sorrow. You don't know how bad your dad feels," he said. He also thanked five friends, who testified in his behalf before Cardenas pronounced sentence. Those friends, including Monsignor John Sammon from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, asked Cardenas to grant leniency. They testified that Boucher contributed much of his adult life to community activities, including the Boy Scouts of America, and that the shame and humiliation he now is experiencing is punishment enough. But Cardenas countered, "Personal shame and embarrassment is not sufficient punishment in most cases, and here it would be woefully short of an appropriate sentence." He followed the advice of Deputy District Attorney Michael Koski, who argued that Boucher "has offended very severely against the laws of the state." Koski contended that Boucher "took advantage of a young man from the time he was 13 and continued exploiting the victim for eight years. ... This was a course of conduct that went on over a period of years. It was not an isolated incident." In 1983, Boucher was named Citizen of the Year by the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce. He was arrested Feb. 28 after the molestation victim told a drug -rehabiliation counselor about what Boucher later termed "a strange love affair." The victim, now 21, told police Boucher started hugging and kissing him in 1979 when he was a friend of Boucher's son. That intimacy soon gave way to fondling episodes and sex acts, according to police reports. The victim said Boucher eventually started giving him money after their encounters and professed a love for him, the police reports show. When the victim tried to stop the molestations, Boucher enticed him into additional sex acts, according to the reports. Colodny said Monday that Boucher initially wanted to plead guilty at his arraignment to spare the victim any further ordeal, and that Boucher continued to insist on pleading guilty despite several technical defenses to the crimes. The defense attorney asked that, instead of a jail sentence, Boucher be placed on five years' probation, which would include 10,000 hours of community service. Boucher was elected to the Huntington Beach City School District board of trustees in 1985, and resigned after the liaison came to light. Boucher, who has lived in Southern California for 40 years, also resigned from his job as employee-relations coordinator for the city of Huntington Beach. |
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