School Bus Driver Sentenced for Molesting Kids

Santa Ana - A former Los Alamitos Unified School District bus driver was sentenced today to 151 years to life behind bars for molesting two sisters and another young girl.

Terry Lee Shields was convicted Dec. 1 of 15 criminal counts for molesting the girls -- aged 4, 7, and 11 -- and possessing child pornography.

"All I can ask is that he's never let out of jail so he can't hurt anyone else again," the sisters' mother told Orange County Superior Court Judge Kazuharu Makino before he handed down the sentence.

She trembled and struggled to control her emotions as she read her statement to the court, noting one of her daughters is autistic and "can't really tell us how distraught she is by all of this."

After learning his punishment, Shields asked for a new trial, claiming his attorney, Gassia Apkarian, was incompetent.

The judge denied the motion and noted the request came too late in the hearing. Shields can take up the issue on appeal, Makino said.

Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown had said after Shields was convicted that he faced up to 207 years and eight months to life in prison. But Makino questioned the math, and the attorneys and the judge spent about 30 minutes interpreting the sentencing laws to get the correct accounting.

The legal debate was largely academic, however, since the 55-year-old defendant will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars.

"I really believe he deserves the death penalty, but that's not available, so I have to settle for the maximum sentence," Deputy District Attorney Heather Brown said outside the courtroom. "He deserves every second he got."

Brown read a letter from one of the other victims, who said she had a nightmare recently that Shields was sentenced to two or three years in prison.

The girl said she wasn't scared for herself as she feels "older, wiser, stronger and smarter" since being attacked and believes she can now spot a sexual predator like him, but was frightened for other more naive girls.

"If he's lucky enough to die in prison, I hope he burns in hell because that's where he belongs," she wrote.

Brown argued for a long sentence to serve as a deterrent. The judge agreed, noting that Shields, as the babysitter for two of the girls and as a bus driver for special-needs students, violated their trust. Also, the judge said, the assaults were "clearly planned and premeditated."

Shields, as a school bus driver, was "hopefully someone you can trust to care for the (children's) well-being," Makino said, but "he was clearly the opposite."

Makino also made note of 2,000-plus pictures of child pornography Shields possessed.

"This person's lifestyle is to collect and maintain photos of young girls in sexual positions," said Makino, who also ordered Shields to pay $30,600 in fines.

The wheelchair-using defendant did not show any emotion during the sentencing as he listened with the aid of a hearing device and his attorney wrote him notes.

After he was convicted, he shouted, "You're wrong," as jurors filed out of the Santa Ana courtroom.

Shields kidnapped the 7-year-old victim as she walked to school in Anaheim on June 9, 2004. He lured her with a promise of a trip to Disneyland, put her in the trunk and then drove her to his home in Buena Park and molested her.

The girl told detectives that Shields tried to get her to drink beer and Nyquil before putting her in suggestive poses for photographs. After he molested her, he dropped her off at a McDonald's.

Shields molested the 4-year-old from April 18-21, 2002, and her 11-year- old sister on Feb. 18 of that year in Los Alamitos.

Shields was arrested Oct. 4, 2006, after looking at child porn on a computer at a cyber cafe in Bellflower. After his arrest, investigators found cameras, binoculars, girls' underwear, lollipops, a pacifier and notes on the movements of a child and her parent he allegedly stalked, Brown said.