Press release: People v. Gary Bryant

Date: December 19, 2001
Case: People v. Gary Bryant
Contact: Sheri Greco, Special Assault & Child Abuse Unit
Telephone: 874-6524

District Attorney Jan Scully announced that on December 14, 2001, defendant Gary Bryant was found guilty of 21 counts of child molest after a court trial before the Honorable Judge Jack Sapunor. The charges all involved substantial sexual conduct and occurred approximately 19 years ago between 1982 and 1985 when the victim was a teenaged boy.

After 18 years of silence the victim came forward to disclose his long term sexual abuse following a media release last year reporting that Gary Bryant was the primary suspect in the abduction and molest of a 14 year old boy from the Frys Electronic Store in Sacramento.

At the preliminary hearing earlier this year the young victim from the Frys abduction was unable to positively identify the defendant in court as the perpetrator who had molested him. The Judge found there to be insufficient evidence to hold the defendant to answer for these charges. The defendant was, however, bound over for trial on 25 counts of molest relating to the victim who had been repeatedly sexually abused beginning in 1982.

The 19-year-old charges were filed pursuant to Penal Code Section 803(g), a statute enacted by the legislature in 1994 to permit the prosecution of molest cases after the statute of limitations had expired. It was necessary to prove that all the acts involved substantial sexual conduct and that there be independent clear and convincing evidence that corroborated the victim's testimony. In addition to four other men who testified at the trial about inappropriate contact they had with the defendant when they were teenaged boys, there was physical evidence found in the defendant's home that corroborated the victim's report of sexual abuse including several hundred photographs taken of young males posing nude while inside the defendant's home.

Judgment and sentencing is set for January 15, 2002, at 9:00 a.m. in Department 21. Deputy District Attorney Sheri Greco stated that she will seek a maximum period in state prison. "The defendant is a sexual predator who has essentially been getting away with the exploitation and victimization of young boys for over 20 years," Greco said.