Friendly Neighbor or Child Predator? Attorneys Paint Dueling Pictures in Trial of Trabuco Man

By PAUL ANDERSON

A 54-year-old Trabuco Canyon man molested three girls and a boy, including a relative, as he lured children to his home with candy and a machine used for reloading bullets, a prosecutor told jurors today.

Michael Clair Glines’ attorney, however, told jurors the allegations were a “chain reaction of untruths.”

Glines is charged with four counts of oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child 10 years or younger, nine counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, a count of lewd act on a child age 14 or 15, and a count of using an underage person for obscene matter, all felonies.

Glines had been friends and a neighbor to the mother of two of the alleged victims for about 15 years, Senior Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown said.

The children often played with Glines’ three daughters, Brown said.

After the parents of two of the alleged victims moved elsewhere in Trabuco Canyon, the families made a date to get together, Brown said.

But the accusations surfaced before the party in July 2013 when one of the alleged victims, an 8-year-old girl, told her mother she didn’t want to go because Glines, “always does something gross and embarrassing,” according to Brown.

When the girl was reluctant to elaborate, her 9-year-old brother added that he was also molested, Brown alleged.

Glines is accused of also making a 10-year-old girl, who was also one of his neighbors, sit on the toilet in his home so he could take an obscene picture of her, Brown said.

Glines’ relative, who is now an adult, told police that the defendant began molesting her when she was 8 years old, and it ended when she was 14 and he got on top of her, prompting a panic attack from the victim, Brown said. When the alleged victim said she couldn’t breathe and asked him to stop, Glines did not attack her again, according to Brown.

The father of one of the alleged victims made a recorded “covert call” -- with investigators secretly listening in -- to the defendant that also will be part of the evidence presented to the jury, Brown said.

“It’s not only what he did say, but what he didn’t say” that will be important for jurors to consider, Brown said.

The mother of one of the alleged victims testified she grew suspicious of Glines following an incident with her son.

When she couldn’t find him at a gathering of neighbors she went to Glines’ home and found him coming down the stairs from the defendant’s bedroom, the mother testified.

Glines came over later to the boy’s home and explained to the parents that the child wandered into his bedroom where he had dozed off, the mother said.

After that, she told her children to not go without a parent present to Glines’ home, where they would like to watch the gun enthusiast reload spent bullets in his garage, without a parent present, she said.

But she realized the children were going over there anyway when she saw them eating candy and asked them where they got the treats, the mother testified.

Glines’ attorney, Sara Nakada, said the allegations were untrue.

“This case is about a chain reaction,” Nakada said.

Glines came under suspicion because he was friendly with the neighborhood children, Nakada said.

“When they wandered into his garage it wasn’t unusual,” Nakada said. “He did what he did with his own kids... He wrestled with them, tossed them up in the air and showed them how to reload old bullets.”

After the initial allegations from the boy and girl, “It was like a wildfire and ... it spread like a virus to other neighborhood kids.”

Glines became known as “the neighborhood child molester... simply because he paid attention to the children,” Nakada said.

City News Service