UPDATE, JULY 19, 2:49 P.M.: Orange County Superior Court Judge David Thompson revealed why Mission Viejo dance instructor Jason Alan Marian should be retried on some counts related to his case involving unlawful sex with a 16-year-old dance student and secret videotaping several other
teen girls undressing in his home.
Veteran defense attorney Gary
Pohlson fucked up, overlooking a potential alibi because the lawyer did not fully comprehend computer evidence that could have cleared his client, according to Thompson (who used different phrasing, of course).
]
The testimony that led to the defense motion that led to Thompson's decision to retry Marian on four felony counts of using a minor for sex
acts and one felony count of sexual penetration by foreign object of a minor involved the defendant's use of a computer when the 16-year-old girl was supposedly being sexually assaulted by him.
Deputy
District Attorney Tony Ferrentino claimed the girl came to Marian's office at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point (where he also worked) on June 4, 2006, and that he then took her to the beach, fed her alcohol, took sexed up photos of her in a bathing suit and sexually assaulted her.
Marian testified that the girl did come to his office to borrow his beach bag and camera that day, denying they had sexy time together (that day) and claiming someone else shot the photos and plied the girl with alcohol.
A computer expert called by the defense testified that the internal clock on the computer in Marian's office showed he was browsing on the Internet while the girl was on the beach. But the expert later recanted that testimony after conferring with the prosecution's computer expert. Ferrentino also noted that Marian, a computer expert himself with a master's degree, could have turned back the computer clock to create a false alibi for himself.
Nontheless, Thompson found that Pohlson did not focus enough on the possible alibi for his client. Pohlson admitted screwing up and stepped down from the case. Deputy Public Defender
Mark Brown took over representing Marian, basing his additional evidence motion on Pohlson having been confused by the highly technical testimony.
Meanwhile, Thompson
on Monday said Marian perjured
himself and “suborned perjury of his wife” when it came to evidence about videotaping 12- to 14-year-old girls undressing in his bathroom. Brown
obviously thought better than to try to get a new trial on those counts after hearing that.
UPDATE, JULY 19, 1:10 P.M.: Mission Viejo dance instructor Jason Alan Marian, 32, was sentenced today to two years and
eight months in state prison for having unlawful sex with a 16-year-old dance student and secretly videotaping several other
teen girls after Slip 'N Slide at a nearby park and a pool party at his home as they changed in the
bathroom.
The Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) had sought a sentence of seven years and eight
months in the can.
The reduced time came as a result of the judge ruling yesterday that Marian must be retried on four felony counts of using a minor for sex
acts and one felony count of sexual penetration by foreign object of a minor.
The trial jury convicted Marian on April 30, 2010, of those counts and two
felony counts of oral copulation of a minor, one felony count of
possession and control of child pornography and one misdemeanor count
of secretly filming another with the intent to arouse.
The counts Marian received sentence on today were based on his
engaging in unlawful oral sex and digital penetration in his home with a
16-year-old girl who was a student at Mission Viejo Dance and
Performing Arts Center where he worked (although she was not one of his
students).
Following a defense motion
claiming the discovery of additional evidence, the judge ordered retrial
on counts based on accusations that Marian invited the
16-year-old to the beach, gave her alcohol, took provocative photographs
of her in her bathing suit and digitally penetrated her there.
For Didi, who a year ago commented on this very blog, “Jason
was working all day but the judge wouldn't allow evidence in
court to prove it. Don't believe everything you read, folks,” we direct
you to the words of one of Marian's victims and her mother, delivered to
the judge before he passed sentence today (via an OCDA conviction
statement):
During the sentencing today, one of the victims who was unknowingly
videotaped by Marian in his bathroom gave a victim impact statement to
the court and said, “As a 7th grader at 13 years old, I had discovered
firsthand what betrayal really was. For the past four years this has
always been in the back of my mind. The impact of all that has gone on
is indescribable. I have been waiting for this to finally be over and
now that it is, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”
The mother of this victim also addressed the court and said of the
defendant, “No one saw it coming. You are the most dangerous of
predators because you so carefully manipulated your way into the dance
studio and into the families of the victims pretending to be something
that you were not. You painted a masterful picture of yourself–someone
who was married, someone who befriended many of the families, and
someone who had just become a father. On the outside you looked safe.
On the inside, you are a sick man.”
[
UPDATE, MAY 4, 2010, 9:20 A.M.: Jason Alan Marian, the 31-year-old Mission
Viejo dance instructor previously blogged about here, faces up to nine years in state prison following his conviction for having an
unlawful sexual relationship with a 16-year-old dance student and
secretly videotaping several other teen girls after a pool party at his
home as they changed in a bathroom.
In April 2007, Marian invited several female dance students from Mission Viejo Dance and Performing Arts Center–where he and his wife worked as instructors–to his home for a party. They were encouraged to wear bathing suits as a Slip 'N Slide had been set up for the 12- to 14-year-old girls at a nearby park, and there was a pool at the Marians' Mission Viejo abode.
After slipping and sliding in the park, the girls were encouraged to come back to the Marian
house for a barbecue and swimming. They were instructed to slip out of their wet bathing suits at a certain bathroom inside the home.
One girl noticed a secret camera had been set up, removed it and gave it to her parents, who turned it over to the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
A subsequent investigation determined the dance insutrctor had not just set up the surreptitious taping system for sexual gratification but that from December 2005 to June 2006, he had groomed a 16-year-old Mission Viejo Dance and Performing Arts Center student for an unlawful sexual relationship.
The girl was not one of his dance students, but Marian offered to help her with a school science project by taking her to his other job at the
Ocean Institute in Dana Point. She was given alcohol and the subject of provocative photos he snapped before he fingered her and had oral sex with her, at his home and on the beach.
Marian was found guilty by a jury of five felony counts of using a minor
for sex acts, two felony counts of sexual penetration by foreign object
of a minor, two felony counts of oral copulation of a minor, one felony
count of possession and control of child pornography, and one
misdemeanor count of secretly filming another with the intent to arouse.
He is scheduled to be sentenced July 16 in Santa Ana.
[
ORIGINAL POST, APRIL 21, 2010, 11:46 A.M.: A dance instructor is on trial for illegal sex acts with a 16-year-old
girl and secretly videotaping 12- to 14-year-old girls changing out of
wet bathing suits in the 31-year-old married man's Mission Viejo home.
Jason Alan Marian is standing trial in Santa Ana on five felony counts of using a minor for sex acts,
two felony counts of sexual penetration by foreign object of a minor,
two felony counts of oral copulation of a minor, one felony count of
possession and control of child pornography, and one misdemeanor count
of secretly filming another with the intent to arouse.
If convicted, he
faces a maximum sentence of nine years in state prison.
That “what the fuck?” you just heard was me saying “what the fuck?” to the possibly penalty being only nine years.
Marian
and his wife were dance instructors at
Mission Viejo Dance and Performing Arts Center on April 14, 2007, when
he invited several 'tween female dancers to his home for a party.
According
to the case being brought by the Orange County District Attorney's
Office, Marian set up a Slip 'N Slide in a nearby park for the girls to
glide across in their bathing suits. Afterward, he had them come back to
his house for a barbecue and swimming.
Prosecutors say he'd set up a hidden camera in the bathroom of his
house and instructed the unsuspecting girls to change out of their
clothes in the bathroom so as not to
ruin his furniture.
Some girls had been surreptitiously taped
undressing when one spotted the camera, removed it from its hidden perch
and gave it to her parents, who turned it over to the
Orange County Sheriff's Department, according to the OCDA.
That sparked an investigation that led to the discovery that Marian had allegedly “groomed” a 16-year-old Mission Viejo Dance and
Performing Arts Center student between December 2005 and June 2006, according to prosecutors.
She
was not one of Marian's dance students, the OCDA says, but he allegedly
offered to assist her with a school science project by
taking her to his other job at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, where
running the podcast program was among his duties.
He is accused of inviting her to the beach, plying her
with alcohol and taking provocative photographs of her in her bathing
suit before fingering her at the beach, claim prosecutors.
They add that in June
2006, Marian allegedly engaged in unlawful oral copulation with the girl and also penetrated her digitally.
Only nine years?
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.