Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller, ducking courtroom cameras, made his first court appearance since his arrest on extensive child molestation charges. The alleged 63-year-old pedophile faces a maximum of 105 years to life in prison if convicted.
San Jose police raided Schwartzmiller’s home last month and found seven notebooks detailing 36,000 sexual acts with children over a 30-year period. The man was arrested and charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault on a child under 14 and six counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under 14, but could face more charges as prosecutors plead to the community to step forward.
The sex abuse chronicles stretch across several states. Schwartzmiller has been convicted on molestation charges before in Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon dating back to 1970. He shared his California home with another convicted child molester he had met in prison.
Expected to enter a plea on July 26, prosecutors are the painful hunt of finding other victims, assuming the chronicled events of the notebook are more than fantasy.
It is widely reported that the two victims that led to Schwartzmiller’s arrest are illegal immigrants, a group thought to be widely targeted by him. Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Steve Fein has vowed not to prosecute any illegal immigrants that come forward to add to the allegations.
“A victim is a victim whether they’re undocumented or documented,” Fein told reporters. “They should not be afraid to come forward. The most important thing here is making sure that if they’re a victim we can take care of them and find out what happened and we can help them.”
