Michael Kevin Lallana, the USC graduate, mortgage company employee and Fullerton family man, has pleaded not guilty to placing his man juice into the water bottle of a female co-worker on at least two separate occasions.
The 31-year-old, who has a wife and young daughter, entered the plea Tuesday and was on his way, as he is out of jail on bail.
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As the Weekly previously reported, Lallana is charged with two misdemeanor counts each of
releasing an offensive material in a public place and assault, with
sentencing allegations for committing a crime for sexual gratification. If convicted, he could get anywhere from three months to three years behind bars and have to register as a sex offender.
Lallana is accused of meeting a co-worker in her twenties–identified only as “Jane Doe” by prosecutors–while working at Northwestern Mutual Mortgage Company in Newport Beach in 2005. This past January, Lallana entered Doe's office and, ahem, deposited his ejaculation into a water bottle that was on her desk, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office. The woman later returned to her office, took a swig from the bottle and quickly tossed it in the garbage, feeling sick and irritated.
She and Lallana were among eight employees transferred to the Northwestern Mutual Mortgage Company's Orange branch three months later. This past April, Lallana–who was Doe's manager–pulled the same semen-in-bottle act on her, according to the OCDA. However, after taking a gulp this time and feeling the same ill effects, Doe had the bottle sent to a private lab to be tested, prosecutors say. After being informed in June that the water bottle contained splooge, she contacted the Orange Police Department.
Following further investigation by the cops and Orange County Crime Lab, Lallana was linked to the crimes through DNA, which led to his Aug. 17 arrest outside his Fullerton home, according to the OCDA.
It had to be a shock to his lovely wife. According to his online Northwestern Mutual Mortgage bio: “Michael spends most of his free time with his family and friends.
Michael and his wife, Emma, have been married for 4 years and can be
seen chasing around their 1 ½ year old toddler, Erica, on the weekends.”
The bio also indicates Lallana has been a financial representative with the firm since 2003; that he is a graduate of the University of Southern California with a B.S. in Business Administration; and that–here's the kicker–he “relishes developing personal relationships and directly impacting the lives of his family, friends and people in his community.”
If the charges are true, that was one pretty direct way to impact Jane Doe, who was also in court when Lallana entered his plea. She was accompanied by her celebrity lawyer, Gloria Allred. Doe left it to Allred to do all the talking, and the diminutive ballbuster explained her “hero” client was there to impress on the court she is ready to testify.
“No woman should have to be victimized in the way that this victim has been,” Allred said (via Rachanee Srisavasdi's report in the Orange County Register). “This is such a horrific act, felonies should be considered. This is very, very disgusting.”
As for how Allred's going to manage a big payday out of a criminal case, she claimed she is not thinking about that right now, that the current proceedings must be completed first.
Just the same, reporters should start booking their seats now for the inevitable press conference announcing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against Lallana and his mortgage company.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.