A British judge has agreed to extradite an Orange County fugitive who appears on the FBI’s most wanted list for allegedly molesting a 13-year-old choirboy from 1998 to 2002.
Untied States and British authorities have been battling for more than three years over the extradition of Roger Giese, 42, who had been a fugitive since 2007 when he fled shortly before his trial in Orange County Superior Court.
He was found in 2014 living in a small town in the English countryside, where he was working for a public-relations firm and living under a different name, according to British tabloids.
British High Court judges previously refused to extradite Giese after determining that his human rights could be violated under a California law that allows sex offenders to be forcibly committed to a mental hospital after they have served their prison time.
But on Monday, a district judge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court ruled that Giese can be returned to the U.S., according to the BBC. He has 14 days to appeal the ruling.
Giese is accused of sexually assaulting a choirboy he met while working as a voice coach for the All-American Boys Chorus in Buena Park.
He is facing charges including lewd acts on a child under 14, penetration by a foreign object, and oral copulation of a person under 18, with a sentencing enhancement for substantial sexual conduct with a child.
California is one of 20 states that have civil commitment laws.
Under civil commitment, a convicted sex offender who has served his sentence can be forcibly committed to a state mental hospital indefinitely if medical experts believe that person is a sexually violent predator likely to re-offend.
Coalinga State Hospital in Central California houses more than 900 such offenders, according to the Department of State Hospitals.
British judges have refused extradition in other U.S. cases on the grounds that civil commitment is a human rights violation.
Giese’s case was renewed last year when U.S. officials launched a new extradition bid under the guarantee that he would not face civil commitment if convicted.
Giese emptied his bank accounts and fled the country shortly before his trial in Orange County.
He appeared on both the FBI and Orange County District Attorney’s most-wanted lists and was thought to have traveled to the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the United Kingdom and Norway.
Michelle Van Der Linden, a spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, said prosecutors are “continuing to actively and aggressively pursue the extradition of Roger Giese.”
Prosecutors said Giese befriended the boy’s family in 1998, attending church with them and inviting the boy and his brother to his house for overnight visits.
Giese pretended to be a member of the elite military unit Delta Force and molested the teenager under the pretense that the boy could join the unit by providing samples of bodily fluids, prosecutors said.
He was arrested in 2002 and released on bond. He appeared in court until March 2007, when he failed to show for jury selection.