Last year, an Orange County jury convicted three young men for the 2002 videotaped rape and molestation of an unconscious 16-year-old girl on a pool table in a Newport Beach garage. 
The case made national headlines not just because the drunk men laughed as they repeatedly shoved a Snapple bottle, apple-juice can, lit cigarette and a pool cue in both of the girl's lower orifices, but because one of the defendants was the son to an assistant Orange County sheriff, Don Haidl.
If Haidl also happens to be exceptionally wealthy (via selling used government cars at auction), then he was more than a bit jaded. He spent millions to humiliate the victim. Private detectives tailed her, dug through her family's trash cans, filmed her day and night, illegally released her personal medical records, and hired a defense lawyer who called her "a slut" in court, claimed that she raped the three men (Gregory Scott Haidl, Keith James Spann and Kyle Joseph Nachreiner) and demanded her arrest. (The nastiness prompted me to write many stories, but in the end, there was this one.)
Thanks to the work of the Orange County district attorney's office (in particular, Chuck Middleton, Brian Gurwitz and Susan Kang Schroeder), which overcame a 13-attorney defense onslaught and won convictions after a second trial, on March 10, 2006, Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno sentenced the weeping defendants to six-year prison terms.
Where are they now?
• Gregory Scott Haidl, 22, lives with 4,889 other inmates at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Fresno County.
• Kyle Joseph Nachreiner, 23, joins 3,700 other men who make their home inside Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe.
• Keith James Spann, 23, resides at Norco State Prison in Riverside County.
October 17, 2007 17:35
I still believe that 6 years of incarceration for Greg Haidl, Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann, would have been achieved in Juvenile court proceedings. Too many families and children were destroyed because of the public adult trial proceedings. Was it worth the tax dollars and what Jane Doe went through to prove a point publicly?
Juvenile court Judges would have seen the seriousness of the crimes and would have dealt with the issues in the interests of justice.
Sadly, Haidl, Nachreiner and Spann will be forced to register as sex offenders for their entire lifetimes BUT former employees of the Diocese of Orange that committed sex crimes against children, as adults and members of the clergy, will NEVER have to register as sex offenders.
Is this how society values the protections of children? Children commit sex crimes and are punished by an adult jury trial and registering as sex offenders. BUT, politically connected sexual predators are protected by Judges, law enforcement and incompetent legal advisors. The politically connected sexual predators WILL NEVER see a criminal court like Haidl, Nachreiner and Spann.
IS THIS JUSTICE?
October 31, 2007 10:36
Not sure what, if anything, unrelated charges concerning the Diocese of Orange have to do with this case. These guys got off easy. A mere 6 years and registration as sex offenders? Big deal. THEY ARE sex offenders and should have been put away for much longer for this brutal rape.
February 9, 2008 22:15
first of all those boys were innocent that girl did come on to greg the night of july 4 2002 she came on very strong she took off her clothes in front of everyone by the pool her own girlfriends were disgusted by her actions so was i.she stripped naked and knelt down by that boy and started to take off his clothes she had her head in his croutch.she was drinking laughing and dancing saying im gonna be a porn star she and him began having sex by the pool then greg left stillnaked she enticed another one of his friends and had sex with him and another one.she was all too proud of herself AS a mother i wanted to snatch her and beat her i kept my teenage son awat from her because she was signaling him from over our yard.we were on vacation that day.the next night around 1.00am i was out walking the dogs and i seen her pull up to the boys house again and alone she was barely dressed and was saying loudly lets get the party on wheres my drink.the garage door was open the whole time she was dancing on top of the pool table and teasing those boys and drinking she was having them lick drinks off of her she was rubbing up on all three boys tugging at their clothes she was saying get the camera and film me doing all three of you she got the pool stick and statrted rubbing it in between her legs she showed them what to do before hand with the soda bottle she did not seem to care i was looking at her both nights.i told my husband what was going on and showed him video on my phone she was saying how she was gonna be famous porn star and how she made videos before she was awake on that pool table she was looking across the street at me i was disgusted for her.after hours i waited to see if she was gonna leave the boys walked her outside around 4am or so she kissed all three and as she drove away i stopped her and asked her if she was proud of herself this night and last she told me to fuck off and i thought what a piece of trash my family and i went back home a few days later to nj and i didnt think about it again until years later when she cried rape only so she wouldnt get into trouble for lying to her parents and sneaking out i called the sheriffs office to say the boys didnt force her but was told i was from out of town and my story didnt matter.the hell it didnt those boys lives were ruined for what a lie this was done to get the father out of office and the girls family a few million dollars not because she was supposedly raped but because she was embarrassed her secret was out she should be in jail for lying rape is a serious accusation one that any woman or girl can easily claim and throw around without any merit and this was one time it had no merit im sorry that the people involved ignored me i had nothing to gain from it then or now i feel for those boys because i have two of my own and if some little tramp tried to do to them what she did oh hell no she,d be a star alright a star in heaven .poor boys you dont deserve what has happened to you.
May 3, 2008 01:08
Teresa, you are not only a barely literate ignoramus, but one of the reasons it's so hard for rape victims to get justice whatsover. "[A] serious accusation one that any woman or girl can easily claim and throw around without any merit..." Yeah, Jane Doe "easily" "threw" her claim around, didn't she? If getting her name dragged through the mud by the rich daddy of a scumbag for YEARS counts as "easy."
And the "boys'" lives were ruined?! No, I'm sorry, THEY ruined THEIR own lives -- and they were damn well old enough at the time to know what they were doing. OTOH, the VICTIM's life was ruined. But apparently you're the sort of mother who thinks that all women except your sainted self are out to stick your widdle innasent baybee's helpless penis into their vaginas and scream rape, so you don't care about that.
(I bet you're a chreeeeeestyunnnnnn, too.)