Surf School Owner Accused of Snapping Lewd Shots of Young Girls

Aug. 18, 2013— -- A Santa Cruz, Calif., surf school owner who spearheaded an effort to clean up the beach and keep drug users away has been arrested on charges of lewd and lascivious acts with children, police said today.

Dylan Greiner, 38, the owner and operator of Santa Cruz Surf School, was arrested late Friday night after Santa Cruz Police detectives serving a search warrant at his home and business allegedly found videos and photographs of young girls' private parts.

According to police, Greiner allegedly befriended young students from his surf school, enticing them with offers of free surf lessons and jobs at the surf school.

After gaining their confidence, he allegedly made inappropriate sexual advances toward the girls and also secretly took photographs of them focusing on private body parts, police said.

During the search of his home and surf shop, police said they found a collection videos of young girls changing into wetsuits in the dressing rooms at his business.

They also found numerous photographs and other video allegedly secretly recorded by Greiner in which he focused on the breasts, buttocks and genitalia of young girls, police said.

Police have only identified two of Greiner's alleged victims -- 14 and 13 years old -- but they believe there are many more and are trying to identify them, the police statement said.

Greiner, who had allegedly been pursuing young girls for four years, was charged with two counts of felony lewd and lascivious acts with children, and ordered held atthe Santa Cruz County Jail on $500,000 bail.

It was not clear whether Greiner had a lawyer and attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.

Greiner was well known in Santa Cruz, in part for his efforts last fall to clean up the beach.

In November 2012, he posted video on YouTube and on the Santa Cruz Sentinel website of discarded hypodermic needles on the beach.

"My focus is not to go down there and continuously clean up people's trash," Greiner told the Sentinel at the time. "My goal is that there's no trash down there in the first place."

The video and a subsequent effort Greiner organized with some of his friends to pick up trash at Cowell Beach got city government involved, and eventually stricter rules were put in place controlling needles at a methadone clinic and a curfew was put in place on the beach.