75-Year-Old Ex-RivCo Teacher Acquitted On Molestation Charge

HEMET, CA — A 75-year-old former Hemet school teacher who had been accused of molesting his granddaughter was acquitted Thursday, following three days of jury deliberations.

A Riverside panel returned with a not guilty verdict for Allan Joseph Mikolaycik on a single count of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old.

The prosecution and defense made closing statements Monday, following nearly two weeks of testimony at the Riverside Historic Courthouse. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Chad Firetag sent jurors behind closed doors that afternoon, and they deliberated Tuesday and Wednesday without a decision.

The panel voted unanimously for acquittal Thursday afternoon, according to court minutes.

Firetag exonerated Mikolaycik's $55,000 bond requirement, and the case was closed.

The District Attorney's Office had said in a trial brief that sometime between October 2014 and October 2015, the defendant was babysitting the victim, identified in court records only as "M.M.," at his East Hemet home when he "insisted that she sit on his lap as she read a book."

"She did not like the request, but she did it anyway," the brief stated.

The victim was 4 years old at the time.

Prosecutors alleged that during the encounter, Mikolaycik fondled the child under her dress. The defense countered that no assault occurred.

M.M. waited until she was 8 years old, in the summer of 2019, to finally reveal to her parents what she believed had happened, according to court papers.

The girl's parents initially had doubts about the revelation, believing the wrong impression might have been drawn due to the victim's age. However, they later decided to contact sheriff's investigators after M.M. insisted the defendant "knew exactly where to go" when allegedly touching her, the brief said.

The document said that when he was interviewed by sheriff's investigators in October 2019, the defendant "acknowledged that he may have touched M.M. between her legs while tickling her, but that it was not on purpose, and he did not understand why she was accusing him of being inappropriate."

Mikolaycik had been a teacher in the Hemet Unified School District, where he was hired in 1978, working at West Valley High School, Acacia Middle School and Dartmouth Middle School before retiring in 2010.

There were never any allegations of inappropriate contact with students.

Mikolaycik has no documented prior felony or misdemeanor convictions.