Pauling Implicates Cop Already Under Arrest for Child Abuse

SUTTER COUNTY, Calif.—The story surrounding the recent incarceration of former porn producer turned anti-porn pastor Donny Pauling is getting stranger by the day. In a jailhouse interview conducted yesterday with the CBS affiliate in Sacramento, Pauling said that a Sutter County Sheriff's captain had entreated him to have sex with an underage female related to the police commander, who was himself arrested by Yuba City police Tuesday afternoon on charges related to abusing a female teenage family member. In the taped interview with CBS13, which the station calls "explosive," Pauling states that "Sutter County Sheriff’s Captain Lewis McElfresh Jr. urged him to have sex with a 16-year-old girl." Pauling, 41, who was originally held in the Sutter County jail, was transferred to the Colusa County Jail after additional charges were pressed against him last week that alleged he had engaged in sex with an underage relative of a then-unidentified employee of the Sutter County Sheriff's Office. That allegation was told to investigators by a 16-year-old female who Pauling had allegedly been having sex with since she was 13, which precipitated his arrest in the first place. Following McElfresh's arrest Tuesday after allegations were levied against him on Monday that he, too, had abused an underage female, who police would only identify as a relative over the age of 14, it seems likely that the underage female both Pauling and McElfresh are alleged to have abused is the same person. Pauling in fact said as much in his interview with CBS13, during which he gave a blow-by-blow account of an interaction he says he had one night with McElfresh, who he said was a "friend" who had invited him over to his house with the direct intention of getting him to have sex with "the captain’s 16-year-old family member."   He added, “I came over to his house and he tried to get me to sleep with her. He said to me that she wanted to sleep with me." He also told the CBS13 reporter, Derek Shore, that McElfresh got the underage girl to undress. Shore asked him, “And what’s McElfresh doing?” “Well, he was watching,” Pauling replied. “Are you telling me that Captain McElfresh tried to watch you and his family member have sex?” asked Shore. “Yes, that’s what he wanted that night," said Pauling, who insisted he refused to comply, after which he alleged that his police officer friend "took me off into a room and told me to keep my mouth shut." CBS13 also commented that "it appears law enforcement don’t believe" Pauling's allegations that he did not touch the 16-year-old. The incredibly incestuous situation has resulted in a round of unusual inmate transfers. Because Pauling has to be held at the Colusa County Jail, McElfresh, who was originally going to be held there because he is the commander of the Sutter County Jail, was instead booked into the Yolo County Jail. CBS13 also notes that the Sutter County DA is hinting at more charges against the police captain, whose bail currently is set at an astounding $5 million. Pauling's bail, by comparison, remains at $500,000. The standard bail amount for one charge of child abuse "comes with a standard bail amount of $50,000," reported CBS13. Image: Jailed Donny Pauling, left, and Sutter County Sheriff’s Captain Lewis McElfresh Jr.