Plea bargain frees Coxes after 15 years

Filed: April 26, 2000

By FRED LUDWIG
Californian staff writer

A plea bargain Wednesday freed two men who have spent more than 15 years in prison for their conviction as part of a molestation ring.

George Leroy Cox, 39, and Anthony Louis Cox, 40, had their convictions overturned last week but faced a possible retrial. Each pleaded no contest to two molestation charges in exchange for 10 years in prison, and a judge then ordered their release.

The two are innocent, attorney Nancy Blanton said, but they decided to not gamble with the unpredictability of a trial.

“It’s been a long 15, almost 16 years for them,” Blanton said.

Prosecutor Craig Phillips said the two are guilty but he wanted to spare the victims from having to testify.

The deal requires the two to register as sex offenders and gives them two strikes each under the three-strikes law, meaning any other felony can bring a sentence of 25 years to life in prison, Phillips said.

The Coxes were serving 36-year prison sentences for the molestation of two girls. They would have been eligible for parole in an additional two or three years, had they been retried and convicted again.

The two brothers were among a group of seven family members convicted in several trials starting in 1985. Five of them have now had convictions reversed, including two for problems with their legal defense at trial. Jeffrey Modahl, a member of the same alleged ring, was freed last year in part over the issue of late-surfacing medical reports.

The reports indicated the two accusers of the Coxes showed no physical signs of molestation. The Coxes were not convicted of physical penetration that would leave such signs, but the girls had earlier alleged penetration, and the report could have been used to challenge their credibility, the Coxes’ defense attorneys contended.

Having decided the reversal on that issue, Judge Stephen Gildner did not address arguments that allegations against the Coxes may have been generated by suggestive questioning techniques by officials.

The testimony of Modahl’s daughter, Carla, was at the center of all seven convictions in the ring, Phillips said. She later recanted against most of the defendants, a retraction that officials say they still do not believe. Phillips said he believes all are guilty.

Carla Modahl has not recanted against either of the two Coxes. Another prosecution witness also is sticking with her allegations.

Had officials retried the Coxes, Phillips said both women would have testified again, along with a third who didn’t testify the first time around because she was too upset.

Two of the victims were in favor of the plea bargain, and the third didn’t seem to have an opinion, Phillips said.

The Cox-Modahl case was one of eight cases in the mid-1980s in which groups of adults were accused of molestation. The handling of the cases was blasted in a 1986 report by the state attorney general’s office for flawed investigation and other problems.

Some of the children reportedly told investigators about devil worshiping rituals, and the killing of children.

After the claims of satanism surfaced, some defendants were released under plea bargains similar to those struck Wednesday. Other cases generated long prison sentences, but most of those convictions were reversed on appeal. Reasons ranged from technical trial errors to improper questioning of child witnesses.

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