Molester sentenced for faking death

LOS ANGELES, June 19 (UPI) -- A California child molester who faked his death at sea was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay almost $30,000 in restitution.

Daniel James Farinholt disappeared for nearly three years after his boat was found off the El Segundo shore with blood smears on it, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday. Farinholt was facing four molestation charges, and after divers found no sign of a body, investigators suspected he had faked his death.

"There was the science and the motivation," Susan Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney's office, told the Times. "Basically, there was the motivation to pretend he is dead and the science that was on the boat didn't support that" he had died.

Farinholt lived under an assumed identity in Idaho until his girlfriend's mother spotted him on the television show "America's Most Wanted" and turned him in. He is serving a 10-year prison term on the molestation charges, the newspaper said.

Farinholt pleaded guilty in March to faking his death and identity theft. His one-year sentence will run during the longer sentence. He was ordered to pay $29,419 in restitution to the U.S. Coast Guard and Los Angeles County Fire Department, the Times reported.