Real Estate

Lawsuit Settled in Case of Manhattan Beach Pilot Who Molested Girl

Attorneys said Wednesday a settlement was reached in a lawsuit filed on behalf of a girl against a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and commercial airline pilot later imprisoned 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 on the child's behalf by her mother, who is identified only as T.B.

The plaintiff was 8 years old and Lee was 81 years old when the suit was filed in October 2016, alleging battery, assault, sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent supervision and fraud.

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

Lawyers told Torrance Superior Court Judge Deirdre Hill Wednesday that the case was resolved. No terms were divulged.

In March 2016, 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 2016 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, according to the lawsuit, which alleged that the pilot 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 alleged. "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. Gloria Lee later filed for divorce and her estranged husband transferred nearly all of their community property to her, including real estate and numerous bank and credit union accounts, according to the suit.

Copyright CNS - City News Service
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