Man Jailed in Molestation of Girl

A man was charged with molesting a 3-year-old girl after a dog dug up decade-old photos and videotapes of the alleged crime in a backyard near Oxnard, authorities said Wednesday.

Jack Sobonya, 54, is to be arraigned next week on five counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child. He is being held on $1-million bail at the Ventura County Jail.

Sobonya had been convicted in a separate case of child molestation and was being monitored by authorities at Atascadero State Hospital, where he was technically on parole.

Before his transfer there in March, he had served 10 years of a 17-year prison sentence.

The current case against Sobonya emerged in early September, when a bloodhound started pawing the yard behind a home in the beachside Silver Strand neighborhood near Oxnard.

The dog gave his owner, who had been living in the home just a few months, a number of dirt-caked Polaroid photos and two videotapes, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Det. Billy Hester.

After the man turned the materials over to police, investigators discovered that Sobonya had lived in the house with a woman and her young daughter in 1993.

Hester said the photos show a young girl in “sexually explicit positions.” The videos are of Sobonya engaging in sex acts with her, he said.

The alleged molestation is believed to have occurred in 1993.

According to authorities, the tapes were made at the home of Sobonya’s mother, who then lived in Ojai.

The photos and videos support accusations made about that time that Sobonya molested the girl, Hester said.

Police conducted an investigation into the matter, but no charges were ever filed, he said.

The girl’s mother, who had moved out of the area with her daughter, called the police when she found out that Sobonya had been arrested in a sex-abuse case involving another 3-year-old girl. But at the time, investigators were unable to produce enough evidence to file additional charges, Hester said.

The girl who is believed to be the subject of the photos and videotapes died in a car crash last year at age 14, police said.

Why Sobonya may have buried potentially incriminating evidence instead of destroying it is unclear.

But Hester said that such behavior is not unusual in child molesters.

“This stuff is like gold to them,” he said.