Santa Monica cops who ignored Eric Uller’s molestation allegations should be prosecuted: lawyer

A California attorney who represented more than 80 victims allegedly molested and raped by a Santa Monica, Calif., police employee said cops and other officials who ignored warnings also should face criminal charges.

Attorney Brian Claypool said decades of abuse could’ve been prevented if officers listened to his clients’ pleas to fire the late Eric Uller, who worked for the nonprofit after-school Police Activities League program since the late 1980s.

The City of Santa Monica this week agreed to a whopping $122.5 million settlement involving 124 victims but court records show Uller molested more than 200 victims, who were minors at the time.

“The fact that this was a nonprofit connected to police makes it even worse,” Claypool told The Post. “Police are hired to protect and serve, and the fact that they had this guy around children … it never should’ve happened.

“They knew this guy had a propensity for molesting kids but did nothing. They were protecting a dangerous sexual predator.”

Court records showed Uller prayed mostly on underprivileged children, some with parents who were undocumented.

Claypool said his clients recounted times when Uller threatened them about reporting the abuse.

He scared the children even more by saying their parents would be deported, he added.

So far, the City of Santa Monica has paid a total of $229 million to victims, making it the most costly settlement by a municipality in California involving a single predator.

Claypool said two of his clients, who were 13 and 14 years old at the time, reported they were molested by Uller and alleged that they were then kicked out of the program.

Uller came from a well-to-do family and was hired by PAL in 1989 to mentor troubled youth, according to records viewed by the Los Angeles Times.

Claypool said Uller targeted teen boys from the Pico neighborhood of Los Angeles, who were mostly Latino.

Uller, who was a dispatcher for the Sant Monica Police and worked for the city’s Information Technology department, also had access to communications among officers and used that to his advantage, Claypool said.

“He took advantage of particularly vulnerable kids and groomed them by giving them food, buying them sneakers,” the attorney said. “He also controlled all of the data and knew everything that was going on in that department and what they were saying. People were afraid of him.”

According to court records, Uller took one of his victims to his father’s medical practice where he first molested the boy in 1989. The victim said Uller told him he needed a physical exam to play sports — a ploy Uller used often on his young victims.

According to the LA Times, a Santa Monica police sergeant became suspicious of Uller’s interaction with a boy in 1991. Another PAL employee reported her concerns and told detectives that ‘the child went everywhere with Eric, and it seemed odd.”

Uller got wind of the report and confronted the PAL employee. She said Uller admitted his interaction with the boy was inappropriate but begged her to keep quiet.

Officers interviewed the boy, but determined the incident was a “misunderstanding.” Uller was not reprimanded or arrested.

In a sworn declaration, a female detective said she noted Uller was “becoming too close” with the boys when she observed him but was told by her supervisors that it was none of her business.

“When I think about how he molested these boys while I was a Santa Monica police officer whose job it was to protect kids from people like Eric, it breaks my heart,” the detective said in her declaration.

Another report showed Uller had been arrested when he was a teenager for molesting a toddler he had babysat. The city still hired Uller despite the arrest being flagged during his 1991 background check.

Claypool said officials who knew but ignored the warnings of victims also should be held criminally liable.

“In some respects, they aided and abetted him in committing these sexual crimes against over 200 kids,” Claypool said. “Why would you hire someone who already has a massive red flag and has committed crimes against kids as a volunteer or youth leader?

“We absolutely need new laws nationwide that says whoever hires a predator also should be prosecuted. It’s criminal what they did after knowing he had this issue as a teen. They just let him explain it away. It’s absolutely reprehensible and should be criminal.”

Uller, 50, was arrested in 2018 but committed suicide the day he was supposed to appear in court to face charges.