Two different pictures of daycare worker accused of sexual assaults

SCOTT SONNER

Wednesday, March 7, 2001 | 3:34 a.m.

RENO, Nev. - One of the videotapes seized from a Reno daycare worker accused of sexually assaulting toddlers allegedly shows him committing hundreds of sex acts with a young child, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Gary Hanneman faces 10 counts of sexual assault and pornography-related charges, eight of which carry maximum penalties of life in prison. Police say that since his arrest Feb. 23 he allegedly has admitted molesting as many as 27 children, most of them at the Children City Learning Center where he worked since May 1999.

As evidence mounts against Hanneman, 33, his lawyer said parents of several children at the center continue to defend Hanneman as a kind, gentle man - anything other than the monster prosecutors are making him out to be.

A judge granted the prosecution's request Wednesday to increase his bail to $250,000 cash, citing comments the suspect allegedly made to police about his inability to stop molesting children.

"I'm concerned, quite frankly, that if he is going to get out and offend another child because he can't stop himself from doing that," Reno Justice of the Peace Fidel Salcedo said.

Defense lawyer David Houston said Hanneman "couldn't even come close" to making the earlier $100,000 cash bond and suggested politics motivated the request for higher bail.

"In first-degree murder cases, we have less bail. In gang shootings we have less bail," he told the judge.

Washoe County Deputy District Attorney Cheryl Hier-Johnson said the 10 counts filed so far focus on only two toddlers. She said more charges will be filed when the investigation is complete.

"There is so much evidence and so many potential victims out there, it is going to take time," she said Wednesday.

"It's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what has been documented. ... We don't know where it is going to end."

Police have reviewed about 450 of the 500 videotapes they seized from Hanneman's home, she said.

One 51-minute segment of one tape shows "one act after another ... apparently compiled over time on tape." Hier-Johnson said.

"There is one particular child where there are hundreds of acts of sexual assault."

Hier-Johnson told the judge that Hanneman suffers from a form of pedophilia that involves a fetish with human excrement. Police seized a video camera from the daycare, which included a videotape of Hanneman allegedly molesting a child the day he was he arrested, she said.

"Based on the evidence, it appears Mr. Hanneman is a very sick man. He can't stop."

Houston criticized the amount of information and allegations prosecutors have made public in the case.

"If you say someone has a fetish with excrement and urine, it has a tendency to prejudice the public against them," Houston told reporters.

In arguing against higher bail, he said Hanneman "has support in the community, and remarkably some of that support comes from parents and children who attended the daycare center near the University of Nevada campus.

"There are two sides to every story," Houston said.

"I've handled criminal cases for 23 years and I've never seen a case with as much support from parents of children who - according to the state - might be victims," he said.

"Parents want to visit him (in jail) with their kids," he said.

At least three parents have offered to write letters and testify on Hanneman's behalf as character witnesses, Houston said.

"They say he is not the person being portrayed by the state ... From what I understand, he had a completely normal childhood. He's described as a congenial, very shy, timid guy.

"His past does not indicate any red flags that he would commit these acts. That is one of the reasons the parents are so supportive. They know him as gentle and kind, loving, caring, someone who went out of his way to be polite - anything other than a monster."

Houston said the $250,000 cash-only bail was the equivalent of a $2.5 million bail in a typical case in which a suspect can be released by posting a bond for 10 percent of the bail.

"It makes bail an impossibility for a defendant who has been completely cooperative," Houston said.

"He has not tried to run despite the fact he had an opportunity to do so. He's been 100 percent cooperative to the point he confessed to police twice, and volunteered to allow the searches.

"It seems like the main threat in this case is if the defendant is released from jail, he's going to go out and confess to police again."