Santa Rosa Church Volunteer Convicted of Child Sexual Abuse

A Santa Rosa church volunteer was sentenced Wednesday to 12 years and eight months in prison in a child abuse case involving a 12-year-old boy.

Judge Troye Shaffer sentenced Drue Mordecai in Sonoma County Superior Court following his Aug. 2 sentencing.

The 59-year-old reached a plea deal and pleaded no contest to two counts of oral copulation with a minor and one count of lewd or lascivious acts with a child, supplying drugs in aid of a crime, assaulting a minor, possessing obscene conduct. material and sodomy with a minor.

In a statement to the court, Mordecai wrote that he made efforts to better himself, including teaching Bible study classes for prisoners, doing yoga and taking college courses offered by Santa Rosa Junior College.

“I want to use my time in prison to continue to better myself and take advantage of all the educational opportunities offered,” he wrote. “So that when I return to society, I have all the tools necessary to be a better, stronger person and contribute to my community in a positive way.”

Mordecai was arrested in January 2021 and originally charged with 28 counts related to child sexual abuse between June 2017 and June 2020, according to Sonoma County Superior Court records.

Mordecai led a volunteer youth group at Santa Rosa’s New Vintage Church, where the victim also attended.

According to Mordecai’s presentence report, the abuse occurred while the victim was between 12 and 17 years old between 2016 and 2020. It is believed that none of the assaults took place on church property.

The report details the abuse, which included giving the victim drugs and taking inappropriate photos of him, which were shared with unknown men.

The victim reported that abuse occurred “more than 100 times” and happened during trips to Sacramento and Antioch, the report said.

The child reported the abuse on January 27, 2021, and Santa Rosa police arrested Mordecai the next day.

According to the presentation report, Mordecai told police: “The best I can tell you is that I thought we were in a relationship and things got twisted and out of control. I made mistakes and I have to live with them.”

Mordecai was recently featured in a Max documentary series about his father, Jim Mordecai, who graduated from Montgomery High School in 1960.

The show, “The Truth About Jim,” featured stories about the life of the older Mordecai growing up in Santa Rosa, as well as detailed interviews with women who told stories of interactions in which he was portrayed as a narcissistic predator, who abused and sexually assaulted young women abused. .

Stories led to suspicions from at least one family member, a producer of the show, that the elder Mordecai was linked to the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders, a series of unsolved murders from early 1972 to mid-1979 of seven women living in remote parts of the condition were found. city.

Investigators said there is no conclusive link between him and those killings, and Jim Mordecai died of cancer in 2008.

Drue Mordecai acknowledged the documentary in his letter to the court. According to the attendance report, he said his father abused him physically and mentally, and that he was abused by an uncle.

Because of the documentary, he wrote, his name is “in the media.”

“Therefore, I must admit that I am very afraid for my personal safety,” he wrote. “I have heard and documented many stories of people convicted of crimes like mine who often suffered serious and in some cases permanent injuries during their first days in prison.”

You You can reach staff writer Colin Atagi at [email protected]. On Twitter @colin_atagi