By City News Service, on April 12, 2013, at 3:22 pm
A former Corona police officer who did not disclose
allegations that a 13-year-old boy was possibly being abused by the pastor and
other members of her church was sentenced today to three years probation and
250 hours of community service.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz
ordered the 44-year-old defendant to complete her community service by Oct. 15
and also pay a $400 fine.
Bell, a 23-year law enforcement veteran, was dismissed from
the police department within days of her Feb. 22 conviction.
The case against her stemmed from the March 2012 arrests of
three men affiliated with Heart of Worship Church in Corona. The defendants —
Lonny Lee Remmers, 54, Nicholas James Craig, 22, Darryll Duane Jeter, 28 — are
facing a slew of felony charges for allegedly threatening and physically assaulting
a then-13-year-old boy.
The youth, Jacob, was turned over to the men by his mother,
also a member of the church, to be disciplined for sexually abusing his younger
sister, according to prosecutors.
Bell testified that on March 26, 2012 — three days before
Remmers and his co-defendants were arrested and charged in the case — an
eccentric parishioner, Steve Larkey, had approached her during an evening
service and told her that Remmers, the pastor, had “poked” Jacob’s chest with a
pair of pliers.
According to Bell, she asked Larkey whether he had seen the
incident, and he replied he hadn’t.
“He was just rambling. Nothing was more important than the
other,” Bell testified. “He didn’t say, ‘I want to report this. I need your
help.”’
Bell told Larkey to go address his concerns to Remmers, and
the witness said he would.
According to the defendant, she did not feel the encounter
warranted immediate action and decided she would speak privately with the boy
when she saw him at church later in the week.
Deputy District Attorney Will Robinson presented mobile
phone records indicating Bell either called or traded text messages with
Remmers about 100 times between March 26 and March 29, 2012.
However, the officer denied ever broaching the subject of
Larkey’s allegations and insisted that Remmers never disclosed anything
potentially criminal to her.
Remmers, Craig and Jeter are awaiting trial on charges that
include kidnapping, making criminal threats and inflicting corporal injury on a
minor.
The men allegedly strapped Jacob to a chair in the bathroom
of Remmers’ home and pepper-sprayed him, and Remmers alone is accused of
pinching the boy’s chest with pliers to punish him.