Photo: Micha Lanere Smith
VENTURA COUNTY — A five-year-old investigation into reports of the sexual abuse of two female children over the course of 13 years came to a head on May 5th with the arrest of Micha Lanere Smith, a 41-year-old resident of Camarillo.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Dan Hawes, on February 19, 2019, an investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spoke with a “female adult” who reported that she had been the victim of sexual abuse from the age of 9 to 18 at the hands of her stepfather, whom she identified as Smith. The allegations involved activity that had taken place in Ventura County, prompting the LASD to refer the case to the VCSD authorities.
Once Ventura authorities were notified of the alleged crime, an investigation immediately ensued, which led to information reported by the victim’s sister in 2014 reporting “similar crimes.” That earlier report went into the file without further investigation at the behest of the young victim.
But VCSD detectives pursued the case, traveling to the City of Lancaster and to the state of Oklahoma “where numerous interviews” were conducted into Smith’s activities in prior years. That investigation indicated that Smith had “physically and sexually” abused both of his step-daughters for more than a decade.
Smith was contacted on May 5th and taken into custody. He was transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was charged with eight counts of Forcible Lewd Acts Upon a Child, with his bail set at $3,600,000.
