Donny Pauling Faces Additional Charges Following Hearing

SUTTER COUNTY, Calif.—Former porn producer Donny Pauling, who had a lot of people convinced that he had turned his life around as a preacher and anti-porn activist, but who today sits in the Colusa County Jail after being arrested in early December on charges related to sex with a minor under the age of 14, saw three new charges levied against him yesterday following a preliminary hearing on the initial charges. He now faces a total of five felonies in the case, reported the Appeal-Democrat. "The initial complaint charged two counts," added the paper. "Additional counts added by [Sutter County Superior Court Judge H. Ted] Hansen covered two time periods, including actions alleged to have occurred in Redding before Pauling moved to Yuba City in 2012. Shasta County gave jurisdiction to Sutter County for prosecution." But Pauling also faces an additional nine charges, a new case and possibly another trial. According to the paper, the 41-year-old "was also charged in a new case on Wednesday for allegedly engaging in unlawful sex with another minor on four occasions. Those charges were filed as a new case and testimony has not yet been heard." The status of Pauling's bail was also at stake in yesterday's hearing, and while his current bail for the first case was kept at $500,000 by Judge Hansen, appeal-democrat.com reports that Pauling "is being held on no bail for the second case." The reason for that is because Hansen is legally prohibited from setting bail "because no one has communicated with the alleged victim about Pauling's potential release, which is required by Marsy's Law." It is therefore more than likely that Pauling will remain incarcerated until his trial. Yesterday's hearing also included testimony from Sutter County sheriff's detective Robert C. Brokenbrough, who has interviewed Pauling's first alleged victim three times, as recently as this Wednesday. "The girl told him that Pauling bought her lingerie — which detectives discovered in his bedroom — and photographed her in erotic and sexualized poses," reported the Appeal-Democrat. "She said Pauling uploaded the photos to Reddit.com." Deputy District Attorney Anu Chopra also "submitted 10 photos of the girl into evidence. Some of the photos included the girl posing topless, exposing her bottom, and some included other minors." The hearing also included testimony about "evidence from other witnesses," including from the alleged victim's former boyfriend. Pauling's lawyer, Roberto Marquez, tried to undermine some of the testimony and also questioned some timelines, but his argument that it was unclear "if the alleged first touch occurred when the girl was 13 or 14" obviously held little sway with the judge, who immediately added the new charges. There was apparently no mention in court yesterday of Sutter County Sheriff’s Captain Lewis McElfresh Jr., who himself remains incarcerated in the Sutter County jail on charges related to sex with a minor, in a case that also implicates Pauling. As AVN reported in December, Pauling himself fingered McElfresh Jr. in a jailhouse interview in which he claimed that the police officer "urged him to have sex with a 16-year-old girl." According to a separate Appeal-Democrat article published yesterday, evidence suggests that "McElfresh Jr. watched Pauling have sex with a minor related to McElfresh." The case involving both Pauling and McElfresh Jr. was the one filed Wednesday against Pauling by the Sutter County DA. Incredibly, the same article includes additional bad news for Pauling, reporting, "Investigators are in the process of interviewing eight minor girls as potential victims of Pauling, according to a declaration filed by Sutter County sheriff's Lt. James Casner. Some of those girls live in Glenn and Butte counties." If charges are eventually filed as a result of those investigations, it will look increasingly as though Pauling was operating as a serial sexual abuser of underage females over an extended period of time, while also perpetrating a successful fraud on anti-porn activist friends who, like Pauling, attended the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation 2014 Summit last May. Pauling is due back in court in both cases on February 13.