Trial date reset for Bay Area attorney charged with child sex crimes

A Solano County Superior Court judge has rescheduled the jury trial from January to February for a former Vacaville attorney accused in a felony child sex assault case.

Defendant James Glenn Haskell, 41, appeared Friday in Department 23 for a trial confirmation, and Judge John B. Ellis ordered him to return for the trial at 9 a.m. Feb. 13 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.

Haskell – who has entered not-guilty pleas to all allegations – enhancements and prior offenses, also must return for a trial management conference at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 9, court records show.

He is represented by Fairfield criminal defense attorney Thomas Maas. Deputy District Attorney Shelly Moore leads the prosecution.

The latest development in the case comes after a two-day April preliminary hearing and Haskell’s held-to-answer arraignment. He faces 16 counts, felonies and misdemeanors.

As previously reported, before the second day of the preliminary hearing, Ellis met briefly in chambers with Maas, Moore, and a social worker from Solano County Child Welfare Services.

Returning to the courtroom at the end of the meeting, Ellis said, “Given the nature of the case,” he would order the four victims — all minors when the District Attorney’s Office filed its criminal complaint in early May last year — to testify.

As testimony resumed for the second day, Sheriff’s Detective Daniel Schilling returned to the witness stand for more direct questioning by Moore.

He testified that one of the victims told him during an interview that Haskell allegedly had inserted his fingers into her vagina an estimated “20 or 30 times” while she was asleep, actions that started in January 2020 and occurred before her 16th birthday.

Upon cross-examination, however, Maas got Schilling to acknowledge that the girl was unsure if the crimes occurred before her 16th birthday.

To counter Moore’s allegations of child abuse, Maas called two county child welfare employees, one of them testifying that, during supervised visits in February 2022, the children “appeared to be happy” when meeting with Haskell and his wife, Emily.

Moore later enumerated the allegations, 18 in all, among them sexual penetration by a foreign object while the minor victim was unconscious; corporeal injury to a child; assault, including strangulation, likely to produce great bodily injury, and strikes with a belt; forcing two of the children to sleep on a bathroom floor, one of them for bed-wetting; four counts of lewd acts on a child; and cruelty to a child by inflicting injury, including pushing a child to the ground, then kicking the child, felonies and misdemeanors that allegedly occurred between October 2018 and up until early 2022, according to court documents and testimony.

Maas noted that one of the older victims delayed reporting sexual abuse, that some of the allegations were “suspect,” and that the four felony sexual assault claims were “the most overtly suspect set of claims.”

In the end, Ellis discharged two of the counts, leaving 16, including the four felony sexual assault charges.

On the first day of the preliminary hearing – April 12 – Moore called as her first witness Solano County Sheriff’s Deputy Wes Simpson. He said he responded to a Vacaville high school on a report that Haskell, a former attorney with the Reynolds Law firm, had injured a child by striking her with a belt.

Interviewed on Feb. 3, 2020, the child told Simpson that she had been spanked “about 20 times” during the previous nine months, bruising her buttocks and upper thighs.

Simpson testified that he left the school campus to speak with Haskell’s wife about the child’s statements and those of another child who heard the corporeal punishment.

Schilling, who also testified the first day, said he learned from a family friend the allegations of “sexual touching” by Haskell.

During the afternoon session, Schilling remained on the stand and Maas cross-examined him, with Schilling stating that the girl didn’t report the sexual assaults at the time because she was afraid she’d “be disciplined” like the other children.

Besides using video recordings of interviews with the children, Maas also repeatedly referred to investigator reports, specifically what the children said, in an effort to weaken Moore’s case.

Schilling admitted Maas was correct that, in the case of one child, she did not report the sexual abuse for fear of being returned to foster care.

Haskell’s most recent court dates follow a mid-September 2022 revelation that the case grew more complex not only with a motion to increase bail but also with Moore’s filing several new serious felony charges.

Haskell, reportedly now unemployed and living in Southern California, remains out of custody after posting $240,000 bail in May 2022.

Moore filed an amended criminal complaint on Sept. 15, adding five more counts, including the four felony charges alleging sexual abuse and one misdemeanor charge alleging physical abuse of a young victim and three of the victim’s siblings.

Court records show that Haskell was arrested by Solano County Sheriff’s deputies on a warrant issued May 3, 2022.

He posted $170,000 bail on May 4, but court records also show that he was arrested again, on May 5, when he posted additional bail of $70,000, bringing the total to $240,000.

On May 4, Haskell also was subject to a criminal protective order, prohibiting him from having any contact with four youths listed in the order.

If convicted at trial, besides the possibility of two life sentences, Haskell will be required to register as a sex offender.

On the Reynolds Law website, before his information was deleted, Haskell was deemed a certified specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law, authorized to advise on business formation matters and a variety of other civil matters.

Haskell was raised in California but also lived in Alaska, Guadalajara, Mexico, and Washington, D.C. Before attending law school, he worked at the U.S. Senate and at his grandfather’s cattle and grain exporting business in Southern California.

While volunteering for the Boys Scouts of America in Solano County, Haskell served as a Scoutmaster and commissioner. Besides his memberships in Rotary and the Vacaville Chamber of Commerce, he was a member of Will C. Wood’s Pep Squad and the Play 4 All Park, among many other nonprofits.

Haskell also was, at one time, a bishop in a Vacaville ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called the Mormon Church.