Prominent OC Republican headed to prison for Sex Crimes

Very interesting events just up the I-5 in Orange County. On Tuesday, Jeffrey Ray Nielsen a prominent OC Republican with close ties to Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and OC Republican Chairman Scott Baugh pleaded guilty to "two felonies: committing lewd acts on a 12-year-old Virginia boy and 14-year-old Orange County boy."[Link]

Nielsen, who is the son of former Fountain Valley Mayor Ben Nielsen, went to Washington in 1994 to work as an aide for Congress Rohrabacher.

During this period, Nielsen befriended a seventh-grade Virginia boy he met as a church youth counselor. For years, Nielsen engaged in sexual conduct with the boy (including in public), tried to convince the boy he was homosexual, and wrote a series of love letters to the boy after he moved back to California to enter USC law school.[Link]

Upon his return to California to attend law school, Nielsen went to work for Orange County Republican Assemblyman Scott Baugh.

He socialized with Baugh. He derided liberals with Baugh. When Baugh left Sacramento and negotiated a job with the powerhouse law firm of Manatt Phelps
& Phillips in 2001, he convinced the firm to hire Nielsen with him. It was during this time that Nielsen found a Westminster high-school freshman in an online gay chat room. Prosecutors say Nielsen repeatedly picked the boy up from school for sex. . . . The boy shared his experiences with a classmate, who promptly told school counselors.

When police arrested Nielsen, a prominent GOP activist at the time, The Orange County Register failed to tell its readers. In fact, the paper—some of whose staffers enjoy cozy relationships with local GOP leaders, including Rohrabacher and Baugh—waited more than three years to mention Nielsen’s arrest. Worse, while Nielsen awaited trial for molesting the Westminster boy, the Register’s Richard Chang helped to bolster the accused pedophile’s reputation in the community. In an article, Chang didn’t mention the charges, but rather praised Nielsen for volunteering to help homeless puppies from the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.[Link]

It is interesting to note that much like the Orange County Register, both the Flash Report and Red County have failed to make mention of this story.