LOS ANGELES _ A Los Angeles County sheriff's child sex crimes detective has been arrested on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl in a case he was investigating.
Neil Kimball was taken into custody Friday evening after a monthslong inquiry into the allegations by the sheriff's criminal internal investigation bureau. He was booked on suspicion of rape by force and preventing or dissuading a victim from testifying.
The 45-year-old investigator with the special victims unit met the girl during the "scope of his work," a department spokeswoman said Monday.
Kimball has investigated dozens of child molestation cases in Los Angeles County during the last few years as a member of the elite specialized unit.
"The investigation and arrest resulted from information provided to the department by a member of the public," the Sheriff's Department said in a statement. It did not announce the arrest Friday and provided the statement after an inquiry by the Los Angeles Times.
The alleged attack occurred in November 2017 in Ventura County, said Michael Schwartz, Ventura County chief assistant district attorney, whose office has been involved in the case for the last month.
After sheriff's internal criminal affairs investigators determined that the alleged crime occurred in Ventura County, they reached out to that county's district attorney's office to assist them with the case, sheriff's officials said.
Kimball was relieved of duty with pay and was booked at the Los Angeles County Inmate Reception Center shortly after 11 p.m. Friday. His bail is set at $2 million.
Kimball was previously investigated in February 2009, after a woman told the Sheriff's Department that Kimball grabbed her hand and tried to make her touch his genitals several months earlier, according to a memo from the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
The alleged incident started when the woman and her friends were stopped by Kimball and another deputy in the parking lot of a hotel where the group was staying in August 2008, according to the memo by Deputy District Attorney Deborah Escobar.
While the group of friends was being questioned by Kimball, some of the women in the group asked to use the bathroom in their hotel room, and Kimball allowed it. The deputy followed them to their room, near where the woman who later complained started filling up a Jacuzzi, according to the memo.
The woman said Kimball told her and her female friends to get into the hot tub, and some of them complied, wearing their underwear, as Kimball flirted with them, the memo said.
When Kimball used the bathroom in the group's hotel room, the complainant went to check on him, and found the deputy exposing himself, according to the memo by Escobar. The woman said Kimball took her hand and placed it on his genitals and grabbed her buttocks, but she pulled away.
Prosecutors declined to file a charge of sexual battery against Kimball, finding no corroborating evidence of the woman's complaint. The witnesses in the hotel gave contradictory statements and the complainant failed to cooperate with investigators, wrote Escobar.
Dan Scott, a retired Sheriff's Department sergeant in the special victims unit who has investigated hundreds of child sex abuse cases, said of Friday's arrest: "This is a shock. The unit has never had something like this happen.
"An investigation like this requires (that) you interview all the prior victims he came into contact with during his time there," said Scott, who has served as a consultant on federal and county child abuse commissions. "You have to be very careful with the vetting for this unit because they come into contact with vulnerable victims."
Scott said any prior allegations of sexual misconduct would normally exclude a person from the assignment.
