Cathedral City man pleads guilty to sexual assault

A Cathedral City man pleaded guilty today to sexually assaulting four teenage girls, one of whom he lured to his apartment by posing as a teenage boy on social networking websites.
Jeffrey Thomas Sackman, 45, pleaded guilty to nine felony counts, including oral copulation with a person under 16, sexual penetration with a foreign object and furnishing drugs to a minor, and one misdemeanor for offenses dating back to 2002.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced to 18 years in prison on Oct. 3, according to court records.
Sackman was charged with 38 felonies and two misdemeanors, and the
remaining counts not included in the plea deal will be dismissed at sentencing,
according to Deputy District Attorney Brijida Rodarte.
“Everybody got at least one count,” she said, referring to the victims.
Some of the charges against Sackman involves a 15-year-old Buena Park girl that he provided with drugs after luring her to his apartment last September by posing as a teenage boy on social networking websites. He paid for her transportation from Buena Park, according to a declaration filed in support
of a bail increase.
Cathedral City police Lt. Charles Robinson said the girl’s mother called police to say her daughter, who had been reported as a runaway, might be at an apartment building in Cathedral City. He said officers went to an address in
the 28200 block of Landau Boulevard and discovered the girl in the defendant’s
apartment.
“She said over the course of four days she was … sexually assaulted,” according to the bail increase declaration.
Robinson said the girl told police she originally met Sackman on a social networking website about two years ago. She subsequently communicated
with Sackman, who allegedly posed as a 17-year-old boy, through several sites,
including Facebook, MySpace and mbuzzy, the lieutenant said.
Sackman, who was arrested Sept. 23, admitted that he sexually assaulted
the girl, according to the bail increase declaration, which states that authorities found child porn on his computer when they served a search warrant at his residence.
The charges against Sackman involved offenses on Sept. 20-23, 2011, in June 2006, July and August 2003 and May 2002, according to the complaint. One
of the girls lived with Sackman for about 2 1/2 years, starting when she was
16, Robinson said.
Sackman remains in custody at the county jail in Indio in lieu of $1 million bail pending sentencing.