San Mateo County: No knowledge of sex crimes

Ten lawsuits were filed Feb. 10 and Feb. 14 by attorneys Joe Goethals and Charles Stone on behalf of the victims who allege former Deputy Probation Officer John Domeniconi sexually assaulted them while he was employed by San Mateo County.

Domeniconi, who died in 2020, is accused of administering strip searches where he would allegedly force the victims to touch themselves, would grope their genitals himself, put his finger up their anuses, rubbed his erection on their bodies and forced them to perform oral sex on him or requested to perform oral sex on the boys, according to the filings.

The incidents, which also allegedly include Domeniconi masturbating while watching the boys shower, mostly occurred at Hillcrest Juvenile Hall and occasionally at the victims’ homes, at schools, Domeniconi’s home or other county sites, according to the complaints.

The victims, through their complaints, allege Domeniconi’s actions were a known secret that Probation Department officials and others ignored. The mothers of at least two boys reported the abuse their sons experienced while in custody to individuals in the county’s Probation Department, according to the filings, and another victim said his complaint resulted in a police report and interview.

Nearly all of the victims were minors at the time of the alleged assaults which they say mostly took place between 1994 and 2002, according to court filings. The most recent incident, according to the filings, occurred sometime between 2018-2020.

The county noted Domeniconi had retired by 2016 and claimed the complaints, originally filed in December with Domeniconi as a co-defendant, were resubmitted in February after county officials informed Goethals and his team that Domeniconi had died.

“It is of note that plaintiffs’ original complaints named Domeniconi as a defendant and made allegations against him personally, but later corrected the error when we informed them he died in 2020. Also, one allegation involves alleged activity between 2018 and 2020; however, Domeniconi retired in 2016,” the statement read.

Goethels said his investigator is looking into clarifying the date of the most recent assault, which he said occurred before Domeniconi retired and aligns with his client’s document probation schedule. He also said the filings were amended to remove Domeniconi as a defendant at the request of the county.

Ultimately, he said, neither the amended filings nor the dates of Domeniconi’s retirement or death change the county’s liability in these cases. A paper trail exists within county records that will corroborate Domeniconi’s crimes and the lack of action on the county’s part to reprimand him, Goethals said.

Goethals also questioned how the county could claim to have had no knowledge of allegations of assault by Domeniconi while also asserting officials will be investigating the claims. He called the claims “empty and hollow,” especially after William Hamilton Ayres, an adolescent psychiatrist, was found guilty of using his position to molest boys in the county between 1988 and 1996 and the county’s former chief probation officer Stuart Forrest was found guilty on two felony charges of possessing child pornography.

The county statement, he said, is a concerning indication that officials have not accepted the gravity of the allegations or the need to amend practices and procedures to better protect children as being requested by the victims in their lawsuits.

“It’s really disturbing, to me, to think that there were people within the county who are still denying that this took place without doing any kind of investigation. And that’s really the problem in the first place, you can’t make a blanket denial without making an investigation,” Goethals said. “It’s sadly a strong indication of how the county is in denial about what they need to do to prevent this from happening again in the future.”