Ex-Navy Commander Convicted of Molesting Girl in Manhattan Beach Sued by Victim's Family

MANHATTAN BEACH, CA - A lawsuit was filed Thursday on behalf of an 8-year-old girl against an 81-year-old former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and commercial airline pilot who is in prison for molesting her while she stayed at his Manhattan Beach home in 2014.

The plaintiff is identified only as Jane Doe in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit brought against Robert Dean Lee and his wife, Gloria D. Lee, on the child's behalf by her mother, who is identified only as T.B.

The suit alleges battery, assault, sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent supervision and fraud.

The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, as well as an injunction preventing Gloria Lee from disposing of any of her real or personal property.

Lee's criminal case lawyer, Harland Braun, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

In March, a Torrance Superior Court jury found Lee guilty of four counts of committing a lewd act on a child, and one count each of oral copulation or sexual penetration with a child 10 years old or younger. He also was convicted of possessing more than 20,000 images of child pornography.

When Lee was sentenced in April to 27 years to life behind bars, he denied that he abused Jane Doe in July 2014 when her family stayed with him and his wife.

The girl's mother had known the couple since she was herself a child and continued to associate with them after she married and had children, the lawsuit states.

The suit alleges that Lee exposed himself to the girl in his bedroom, forced her to touch his private parts and -- while riding in his car -- to view pornography and to use sex toys to touch her genitals.

"Lee also told Jane Doe that he hoped in the future that he and she would be husband and wife," the suit says. "Lee threatened Jane Doe that if she told anyone about the sexually abusive acts, she would go to a foster home, which he characterized as a prison for children, and that he would go to jail."

The girl reported the abuses to her family in August 2014 and Lee was arrested two months later, the suit says.

Gloria Lee later filed for divorce and Lee transferred nearly all of their community property to her, including real estate and numerous bank and credit union accounts, the suit states.

-- City News Service, photo via Shutterstock