A no doubt soon to be former Los Angeles police officer faces up to eight years in state prison after being convicted by an Orange County jury Tuesday of repeatedly flashing residents near the Bolsa Chica wetlands, including a 12-year-old girl who unwittingly caught the peep show three times.
Ryan Eric Galliher, LAPD Cop Accused of Being Serial Flasher, is the Wrong Man: Defense
Jurors deliberated for about 3 1/2 hours before finding 33-year-old Huntington Beach resident Galliher guilty of felony attempted lewd conduct and contacting a minor to commit a lewd act as well as six misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure and a count of lewd conduct in public.
Several reports of a flasher on Bolsa Chica trails dating back to February 2014 had spurred police to watch the area. On Oct. 23, 2014, hiding investigators watched Galliher take off his shorts and shirts and jack himself off.
Among the many victims who had seen Galliher before his arrest that day was the unidentified 12-year-old girl, who liked taking a shortcut home through the wetlands but changed up her route after seeing the pervy cop the first time. It did not help; he still exposed himself to her two other times nearby.
The defense tried to argue that cops and prosecutors had the wrong man, but jurors obviously bought the argument of Senior Deputy District Attorney Jess Rodriguez.
“Ryan Galliher likes exposing himself in public, in broad daylight to strangers,” the prosecutor said in opening statements. “He acted out on this desire over and over and over again until he was finally caught by the Huntington Beach Police Department in the act.”
Officials with the LAPD previously said they would await the trial's outcome before considering punishment for Galliher, who had been free on $100,000 bail but was immediately taken into custody after the guilty verdict was read in Superior Court in Santa Ana.
At Galliher's scheduled sentencing in the same courtroom on Dec. 18, he faces up to eight years behind bars and an order to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, according to Rodriguez.
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