A former volunteer with the Santa Monica Police Activities League has been charged with sexually assaulting four children. Since those charges were announced, at least six additional victims have contacted officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department with their own allegations of sexual abuse by the volunteer and city employee.
50-year-old Eric Wess Uller was a volunteer with the Activities League program between the late 1980s until around 2010. Investigators believe that there may be more victims because of Uller’s access to hundreds of children over that time period. They have asked other potential victims to come forward.
The alleged victims are now adults but were around 13 or 14 years old at the time of the assaults.
Uller was working as the lead public safety systems analyst for Santa Monica but has been placed on administrative leave. His bail was set at $750,000. On November 5, he pleaded not guilty to three counts of lewd acts upon a child, two counts of oral copulation of a minor and one count of continuous sexual abuse.
Attorney contributor Jason Amala, a California-based sexual assault survivor attorney, has dedicated his professional career to obtaining justice for victims of sexual assault. We’ve asked Bobby to add some thoughts on the legal rights of child sexual abuse survivors:
“As parents, we all place the safety and wellbeing of our children above all else. When someone in a position of trust, sexually abuses a child, the child and family need as much support as they can receive. Sometimes in cases of child sexual abuse, third parties such as youth organizations, churches, employers, etc. fail to stop sexual abuse because of negligence. When negligence is a factor, the victims and their families may have grounds for a lawsuit against the third party,” explained Mr. Amala.