Costa Mesa man sentenced in molestation case

Deepa Bharath

A former Long Beach police officer was sentenced Friday in Santa Ana

to eight years in state prison for luring a 14-year-old boy he met in an

Internet chat room to his Costa Mesa home and repeatedly molesting him

over a four-month period.

A jury in December deliberated for less than two hours before

convicting Michael McDonald, 62, of 11 counts of child stealing, sodomy,

oral copulation, possession and distribution of child pornography.

Prosecutors said McDonald met the boy, a resident of Garden Valley in

Northern California, over the Internet and lured him to his apartment

three times. The boy ran away from home and stayed with McDonald in

October 2000, November 2000 and again in January 2001.

The first two times, the boy went back home, but the third time, on

Jan. 12, 2001, Costa Mesa police arrested McDonald after being tipped off

by the boy’s parents.

McDonald was fired from the Long Beach Police Department in the early

1980s after he was charged with molesting four girls. The charges

resulted in two different trials that ended with hung juries.