A voice coach on the Orange County District Attorney (OCDA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Most Wanted lists was extradited from England on Aug. 10 to face trial for sexual assault of a child.
OCDA Tony Rackauckas and Buena Park Police Department (BPPD) Press Information Officer Mike Lovchik gave a press conference on Aug. 13 and announced the following.
Between May 1, 1998 and May 31, 2002, Roger Alan Giese, 43, is accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a young boy he met while working as a voice coach for The All-American Boys Chorus. The boy was 13 to 17 years old at the time of the crimes.
Giese is accused of befriending the victim’s family by joining the same church.
He is accused of using the family’s friendship to gain access and luring the boy and his brother to his house for overnight visits.
During the several months of grooming the victim—a phrase Lovchik defined as setting out to “get that person’s trust and use that trust in order to have them either submit or have the suspects complete their crimes against them,”— Giese is accused of pretending to be a member of an elite military unit called “Delta Force” and molesting the victim under the pretense that the child could earn a place in the military unit by providing semen, urine, blood and stool samples to Giese.
He is accused of masturbating, orally copulating and anally penetrating the boy, as well as masturbating himself in front of the victim.
On Sept. 20, 2002, Giese was charged by OCDA and the BPPD, who investigated this case, arrested the defendant at his Irvine home.
Giese posted $200,000 bond on Oct. 24, 2003, and failed to appear for trial on March 12, 2007. Giese was placed on the OCDA’s Most Wanted List.
On March 16, 2007, a federal arrest warrant was issued for Giese in the Central District of California for violation of Title 18 USC Section 1073, Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution. The warrant was obtained by the FBI at the request of the OCDA due to Giese fleeing the state prior to his trial on March 12, 2007.
Following a tip that was reported to the television show “America’s Most Wanted”, Giese was located in the UK in 2012, where he was living under a false name.
When asked what he knew about Giese’s life in the UK, Rackauckas said it was his understanding that Giese had been working for a church in Hampshire, England. It is not known whether Giese committed any further crimes while he was abroad.
Extradition is a difficult and lengthy challenge. After a long court process in the UK, where questions of Giese’s treatment in prison, sentencing and subsequent possible civil commitments were litigated, the extradition order was deemed final on July 17, 2018.
When asked why it took six years to get Giese back to the US after he was found in the UK, Rackauckas cited differences between the two countries’ legal systems.
On Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, Giese was transported from England to BPPD. Now that Giese has been returned to the state of California, the jurisdiction in which he was charged, the federal government is expected to dismiss the federal warrant and Giese will be prosecuted by the OCDA.
The extradition of Giese was accomplished with the considerable assistance of the Metropolitan Police Service Extradition Unit in the UK, the FBI’s Orange County Field Office and Legal Attache in London, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. and London.
The OCDA is dedicated to the apprehension and extradition of serious, violent and dangerous fugitives from anywhere in the world. The OCDA is committed to prosecuting fugitives, protecting the public and seeking justice for victims and would like to thank its partners in this case, BPPD, DOJ, FBI, Interpol and U.S. Department of State, for their extraordinary assistance in Giese’s extradition.
