| For Immediate Release Case # 08HM0490
July 29, 2009 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Public Affairs Counsel Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami |
SCHOOL POLICE OFFICER CONVICTED OF ASSAULTING GIRLFRIEND DURING MOTHER’S DAY CAMPING TRIP
NEWPORT BEACH – A police officer with the Santa Ana Unified School District was convicted today of assaulting his girlfriend during a weekend camping trip at Doheny State Beach. Anthony Carl Maes, 42, Whittier, was found guilty by a jury of one misdemeanor count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one misdemeanor count of dissuading a witness from reporting a crime. He faces a maximum sentence of two years in jail at his sentencing on Sept. 1, 2009, at 9:00 a.m. in Department H-5, Harbor Justice Center, Newport Beach.
On May 10, 2008, Maes was camping with his girlfriend, Jane Doe, and their baby boy at Doheny State Beach for Mother’s Day. At approximately 9:15 p.m., Maes got into an argument with his girlfriend after Jane Doe found him going through her cell phone while she was sleeping on the bed in their motor home. The defendant hit Jane Doe in the face three or four times, causing scratches and bruising, while she was laying on the bed next to their baby.
After the assault, Jane Doe sneaked out of the motor home and approached Park Rangers, who had stopped by and recently left the defendant’s motor home because of a loud generator. The victim was crying, shaking, and pleaded with the Park Rangers to help her get her baby from the motor home so that she could leave. Maes came out of the motor home and saw Jane Doe speaking to the rangers and instructed her in Spanish, “Don’t say anything.”
At the time of the assault, Maes was a 10-year veteran of the Santa Ana Unified School District Police Department.
Deputy District Attorney Vanessa Woods is prosecuting this case.
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