*This story was updated Dec. 5.

Jeffrey Ray Nielsen—the well-connected Orange County conservative activist who claimed the so-called liberal media, specifically the Weekly, was out to get him by publishing a series of exposés on his pedophile activities—finally admitted on Dec. 5 that he used two boys for sex since the early 1990s.

In open court, a somber Nielsen, who has extensive personal ties to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Orange County Republican Party boss Scott Baugh, gave Superior Court Judge David Thompson signed guilty pleas acknowledging two felonies: committing lewd acts on a 12-year-old Virginia boy and 14-year-old Orange County boy.

In exchange, Nielsen, 37, received a three-year prison sentence, which is relatively mild considering he faced more than a decade in state prison if convicted of the 16 charged crimes. On Jan. 14, Nielsen must enter Del Amo, a Los Angeles County sex-offender facility, for a maximum of 12 weeks. Shortly after he completes that program, he will be transferred to an unknown state prison. State law requires that he complete at least 80 percent of his sentence before being released back into society. He must also register as a sex offender for life.

“It’s appropriate that Mr. Nielsen is going to prison,” Deputy District Attorney Colleen Crommett told reporters. “His conduct warranted that, and I wasn’t going to settle for less.”

Nielsen, his weeping mother and red-faced father, a loyal friend, and his high-priced legal team of Paul S. Meyer (whose customary arrogant demeanor was nowhere to be seen) and John Barnett had little to say as they left the courthouse. Meyer had hoped to win Nielsen merely probation.

The son of former Fountain Valley Republican Mayor Ben Nielsen, Jeff Nielsen was brought to Washington, D.C., in 1994 by Rohrabacher as his aide. During this period, Nielsen befriended a seventh-grade Virginia boy he met as a church youth counselor. For years, Nielsen engaged in sexual conduct with the boy (including in public), tried to convince the boy he was homosexual, and wrote a series of love letters to the boy after he moved back to California to enter USC law school.

Rohrabacher, who nowadays claims amnesia about his ties to Nielsen, wrote a glowing personal letter of recommendation for Nielsen’s admittance into the school.

Nielsen later became close to then-Orange County Republican Assemblyman Scott Baugh. He worked for Baugh. He socialized with Baugh. He derided liberals with Baugh. When Baugh left Sacramento and negotiated a job with the powerhouse law firm of Manatt Phelps & Phillips in 2001, he convinced the firm to hire Nielsen with him. It was during this time that Nielsen found a Westminster high-school freshman in an online gay chat room. Prosecutors say Nielsen repeatedly picked the boy up from school for sex. Once, Nielsen visited the boy’s home when his mother was at work and screwed him on her bed, according to police records. The boy shared his experiences with a classmate, who promptly told school counselors.

When police arrested Nielsen, a prominent GOP activist at the time, The Orange County Register failed to tell its readers. In fact, the paper—some of whose staffers enjoy cozy relationships with local GOP leaders, including Rohrabacher and Baugh—waited more than three years to mention Nielsen’s arrest. Worse, while Nielsen awaited trial for molesting the Westminster boy, the Register’s Richard Chang helped to bolster the accused pedophile’s reputation in the community. In an article, Chang didn’t mention the charges, but rather praised Nielsen for volunteering to help homeless puppies from the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Earlier this year, the DA’s office blundered its way through the first Nielsen trial in the Westminster case. (One big error: They failed to call the Virginia boy as a witness.) Meyer, Nielsen’s defense lawyer, savaged the clearly embarrassed Westminster boy on the witness stand; Nielsen claimed he was only interested in mentoring a troubled youth. Never mind that Nielsen possessed more than a thousand man-boy and boy-boy sex images (downloaded from websites such as “First Pubic Hair” and “Boy Toy”) in his Ladera Ranch home (near a grade school, no less), a confused Newport Beach jury deadlocked. Nielsen fans in local Republican circles wrote triumphant letters to the Weekly.

Afterward, Rackauckas reassigned the crimes to prosecutors Crommett and Matt Lockhart, who promptly filed charges based partly on the Weekly’s 2006 exposés detailing Nielsen’s relationship with the Virginia seventh-grader. Meyer, who has specialized in representing pedophiles, angrily claimed the public couldn’t trust this “tabloid” paper’s reporting. The two cases were both scheduled to go to trial when Nielsen’s representatives finally requested a plea bargain a week ago.

“[Meyer] knew I had developed a mountain of evidence,” Crommett said. “It would have been awfully hard for him to overcome that.”



rscottmoxley@ocweekly.com

For previous Jeff Nielsen coverage, see the following from our archives:

“NAMBLA Fantasy: Republican activist Jeff Nielsen says he didn’t know the object of his affection was a 14-year-old boy,” Oct. 6, 2005.

“‘OUR THING’ : New molestation allegation dogs arrested conservative activist,” Sept. 28, 2006.

“Accused GOP Pedophile Ties DA to Blackmail Plot : Jeff Nielsen says ‘mentored’ seventh-grade boy sought apology, $100,000,” Oct. 4, 2006.

“Boy Crazy: The sad chronicles of a man who wants a boy to love him ,” Nov. 22, 2006.

“Imaginary Teen Sex? Boy dreamed up three sex romps, Nielsen claims ,” Feb. 22.

“The Chilly Specter of an Accused Pervert: Nielsen defense attacks alleged molestation victim’s credibility ,” Feb. 28.

“Teeny Bop Panty Drop: Accused child molester Jeffrey Ray Nielsen feigns dismay that jurors were hung,” March 12.

 

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