Photog Caught on Camera With 15 Year Old
Calif. photographer's fiancee allegedly helped facilitate the relationship.
July 10, 2008— -- An accomplished California photographer and his former fiancee both face charges tied to his alleged year-long sexual relationship with a teenage girl that began when the girl was 14.
Jason Ellis, 33, was arraigned by the Orange County District Attorney's Office Tuesday on seven felony child-sex charges. He was released from jail on $100,000 bond, police said.
His former fiancee, 31-year-old Michelle Hecker, turned herself in to the Newport Beach (Calif.) Police Department this afternoon. She was scheduled to be arraigned on a felony charge of aiding and abetting Ellis, specifically by developing trust with the girl's parents and helping arrange rendezvous between the pair and concealing the relationship.
Orange County prosecutors say Hecker met the unidentified girl while horseback riding a year ago when the teen was 14. She allegedly introduced the girl to Ellis and drove her to and from a meeting with Ellis during which Ellis and the girl spent time alone together. She is accused of "having the victim change into and out of horseback riding clothes to hide her activities from Jane Doe's parents," the Orange County District Attorney wrote in a release.
"After meeting the victim, Ellis is accused of continuing to see Jane Doe and grooming her to develop a sexual relationship," the district attorney's office wrote. Ellis took the girl on dinner and movie dates, prosecutors said, and was physically affectionate in public and private.
The Newport Beach Police Department started investigating the case on June 25 when the girl's family showed up at the police station to report the illicit relationship. Police obtained a warrant for Ellis' arrest, but he and Hecker temporarily disappeared after apparently learning that police were looking for them.
On July 6, an officer in the neighborhood looking for Ellis stopped him in his vehicle and made the arrest, according to Evan Sailer, a spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department. Authorities later obtained the warrant for Hecker's arrest.
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