WILLIAM MCDONALD A courtroom full of people sat silently as William Terry MacDonald learned that a Mariposa County jury had found him guilty of 15 felony counts of child molestation. MacDonald, 64, of Hornitos, had been on trial for the previous two weeks.

Shortly after 5 p.m. on April 29, a Mariposa County Superior Court clerk read pages and pages of verdict forms, indicating that the jury had decided MacDonald was guilty. His son and wife sat stone-faced a couple rows behind the defendant. On the opposite side of the courtroom, other witnesses and victims blinked back tears as the verdicts were read.

MacDonald himself sat at the defense table, with his hands crossed as he, too, listened in silence. Most of the jurors looked straight ahead, but there were no tears in the jury box as the clerk continued reading.

MacDonald was convicted of the 15 felonies and enhancements for having substantial sexual contact with his victims and for having more than one victim. He faces a state prison sentence of 150 years to life. The crimes happened from December, 1991 to December, 2008.

The trial featured testimony from MacDonald’s victims, family and others. One victim, now 33-years old who was not named in the charges, was reduced to tears through much of her testimony, explaining how the abuse escalated through the years. What began as touching and oral copulation culminated in intercourse beginning in the seventh grade and continuing two or three times a week by the time she was in high school.

Another victim, who is now 24-years-old, testified that she never intended to come forward with the allegations. She said she only did so after learning that her nieces may have also been the victims of the same kind of abuse.

MacDonald tried to tell her to relax, that women “enjoyed” the attention. “I’m not a woman,” she told him. “I didn’t like it.” She said she told Mac- Donald she hated him. He responded, “He said, ‘but I love you.’”

MacDonald took the stand in his own defense. MacDonald’s testimony followed that of his oldest child, Lance MacDonald, Sr. The picture the two men of the sexual molestation allegations was quite different than the one sketched by the victims and other witnesses earlier in the proceeding.

MacDonald patently denied all the charges lodged against him, waiving his constitutional right against self-incrimination by testifying. He said he understood what such allegations could have done to him. “I could have gone to jail or something,” he said. “I was trying to be a dad. It blew me away.” MacDonald said from that point on, he took precautions to make sure he was never alone with the girls.

Visiting Judge Carlos Baker set MacDonald’s sentencing for June 11 at 9 a.m. He remains in custody at the Mariposa County Jail. He was ordered not to have any contact with the victims.

After the verdict District Attorney Bob Brown lauded the efforts of his prosecutor. “I think Deputy District Attorney Kim Fletcher did an outstanding job of presenting all the facts and evidence to the jury,” he said. He also thanked the jury for its “conscientious efforts in a particularly tough trial.”