Posted on: Thursday, March 13, 2003

Obscene calls lead to search

By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer

Police searched the 'Aiea Heights home of a 51-year-old man they believe may be responsible for phoning 20 to 40 children in the past two years and telling them to perform sexual acts.

Detective Letha DeCaires, Honolulu Police Department CrimeStoppers coordinator, said the man was identified through telephone traps and call traces in connection with obscene calls placed in January and February to a Kapolei girl, 11, and a 14-year-old boy.

Police were assisted by Verizon's security nuisance phone call center, DeCaires said.

The man was not arrested, police said, but they will forward to prosecutors cases involving 20 to 40 victims of misdemeanor harassment.

The man's home was searched Tuesday.

DeCaires said he might be connected to cases dating to the mid-1980s, but police are concentrating on reported offenses going back two years, within the statute of limitations.

The cases involve a man phoning children and identifying himself as a doctor, then directing the children to perform physical exams on themselves or other children, DeCaires said.

"There's always a penalty if they don't do it," he said. "The penalty might be that they will be kicked out of school."

The man is not believed to be "Dr. Young," who has placed similar calls for several years to children in the Chinatown and Salt Lake areas.

Unlike "Dr. Young," the 'Aiea man apparently has not tried to meet victims, police said.