MOM OUTRAGED AT MOLESTER'S PENALTY.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

Prosecutors and the mother of a 7-year-old who was molested by a neighbor expressed outrage Thursday that the Ventura man convicted of fondling the girl has been sentenced to a year in jail rather than the maximum 10 years in state prison.

Merval Stilts, 74, who served two years in state prison in the 1960s for sex crimes against his own daughter, was sentenced Wednesday by Ventura Municipal Court Judge Thomas Hutchins. Stilts could be released from Ventura County Jail in less than six months, prosecutors said Thursday.

Hutchins cited Stilts' age, poor health and the absence of arrests for similar crimes in choosing the lesser sentence. The judge also cited the lack of violence and injury in the new case compared to the ``monstrous'' sex crimes involving his daughter in Ojai over the course of a decade.

``I could not believe that the judge would do that. That is not enough for what he has done to my children,'' the mother said Thursday.

In nearly three years of prosecuting sex crimes, Deputy District Attorney Jacqueline Wise said no Ventura judge has spared a convicted adult child molester from prison.

Wise said the sentence does not match the abuse the girl, now 8, will live with. Stilts was found not guilty of similar abuse against the girl's younger sister, now 6.

``The sentence does not compare to the type of crime, the type of individual we're dealing with,'' Wise said. ``Once a child molester, always a child molester. I think he's sending the wrong message to repeat offenders.''

The sisters and their mother attended several counseling sessions earlier this year, and many more are planned.

``My oldest daughter has a lot of anger,'' the mother said. ``My younger daughter, I'm hoping she will grow up with it not having a large effect on her.''

Hutchins did not return phone calls Thursday seeking comment.

Defense attorney Robert Schwartz defended the judge's decision, saying Hutchins heard the trial and listened to all the facts in the case, including testimony from the two sisters.

``Based on the totality of the circumstances, I think he reached a proper decision,'' Schwartz said.

Stilts was like a grandfather to the two girls after the family moved into his low-income housing complex in Ventura in 1993, their mother and prosecutors say. Even after the family moved two blocks away, Stilts continued to care for the girls while their mother worked and went to school, Wise said.

The girls watched cartoons on mornings before school, ate ice cream and played during the afternoons, and visited overnight on occasion.

``The relationship was really equal to a grandfather. Their mom would cook meals for him,'' Wise noted.

The family's trust was shattered in December, when the older girl told a relative that Stilts had fondled her in his bathtub and had fondled both sisters in his living room more than once.

Ventura police arrested Stilts in January. A Ventura Superior Court jury convicted him in July, after a weeklong trial, on two counts of lewd acts with the older sister.

Stilts did not testify at the sentencing hearing, but he wrote a letter to the judge in July stating he didn't intentionally ``touch the girls'' and ``will never be in anyone's home with a child again in my life unless the mother or father is there. . . .

``I am sorry about (the girls) having to go through the past ordeal,'' Stilts wrote. ``They are good children and were a joy to have around.''

Wise said the letter and other statements he made before sentencing showed a lack of remorse and that he deserved prison time.

``I argued that he violated a position of trust until I was blue in the face, but that didn't make any difference,'' said a frustrated Wise.

The Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Abuse in Ventura, whose leaders attended the sentencing hearing, issued a statement Thursday that called the sentence ``a travesty of justice.''

``We would like to ask Judge Hutchins: What about the sentence imposed upon these two young girls by Mr. Stilts? They have been violated, robbed of their childhood, their trust sacrificed, and will be forced to live with the memories of child sexual abuse for the rest of their lives.''

Probation officials recommended that Stilts be committed to the state Department of Corrections, without specifying a term. The only factor cited in his favor was that Stilts completed parole after serving two years in state prison for his 1965 conviction on sex crimes charges involving his daughter over nearly a decade while she was a minor.

The daughter, now living in Oregon, testified at Stilts' recent trial and wrote a letter to probation officials, contending her father was a risk to children in the community.

Although Hutchins sentenced Stilts to a year in jail, he likely will be released early next year. Wise said Stilts received credit for 72 days served in jail following his arrest and could receive credit for one-third of the jail sentence based on good behavior.