The prosecution played a secretly recorded phone call in which jurors heard former Vacaville attorney James Glenn Haskell, charged with several child sex assaults in 2022, tell a family friend that there would be “absolutely no touching” when any of four adopted children returned home.
James Glenn Haskell. (Solano County Sheriff’s Office)
During the nearly 50-minute “pretext call,” a recorded phone conversation initiated by investigators between a person and a suspect in a criminal case, Desire Dominique told Haskell that she had spoken with his oldest adopted daughter in early 2022 at a Fairfield restaurant.
Dominique, seated on the witness stand Monday, Day 9 of the Solano County Superior Court trial told Haskell during the phone call that the girl, a minor at the time, said, “You touched her” in “her private area.”
During the call — the transcript of which jurors, Deputy District Attorney Shelly Moore, defense attorney Thomas Maas and Dominique followed along — Haskell could be heard at its outset stammering and breathing in exasperation and said, “I don’t know really know what you’re talking about.”
Dominique, a member of the same Mormon church ward in which Haskell, 42, served as a bishop, said the daughter “wanted to come back home.”
Haskell then said, “We’re not touching the kids in any way. Whatever she wants, she gets. I will not touch her in any way.”
Shortly afterward, he added, “You’ve got my promise: There’s nothing going on. She’ll have her independence. She gets to call the shots — 100,000 percent.”
Sounding surprised that the daughter would disclose alleged assaults, which court records shows occurred for more than a year in the Haskell homes in Vacaville, Haskell said, “I don’t know what to make of any of this. For all the kids, we’re redefining relationships.” (Several years ago, James and Emily Haskell adopted four children, three girls and a boy. The Reporter generally does not identify victims of sexual assault or abuse.)
Some minutes into the call, Haskell, clad in a navy blue sweater over dark gray trousers while seated at the defense table, wondered if the daughter had contacted an attorney.
“Tell her I’m sorry,” he can be heard saying. “If she gives us another chance, we’re all about supporting,” mentioning her name, “and letting her be her own person.”
“I’m so sorry,” Haskell repeated. “If she comes home, she’ll be safe.”
Some moments later, he said, “I love that girl. She’s a very special girl. I don’t want to diminish anything that she says. Any physical contact … She can set the ground rules. They’ll be 100 percent respected.”
Haskell said he hoped the girl “comes home for her 18th birthday. We’re going to be different parents. I want to be her dad. She sets the rules.”
“She really needs you guys right now,” said Dominique, who also testified last week and returned to the witness stand Monday. “She knows she doesn’t want to go back into the (foster) system. She’ll be eaten alive.”
Haskell said he would tell his oldest daughter “the mistakes were not yours.”
Haskell faces 16 counts, felonies and misdemeanors, alleged crimes that occurred between Oct. 2018 and up until early Feb. 2022, according to court documents and testimony. The children eventually were removed from the Haskell home. Additionally, allegations filed later in the case included four felony sexual assaults.
Later in the call, he spent several minutes wondering if his daughter would want to be hugged during the next supervised visit with social workers.
“It wasn’t about the hugging,” said Dominique. “She said it was the touching — in her private area that she was uncomfortable with.”
“Her wishes will be respected,” Haskell said, adding, “If she comes home, everything she doesn’t like stops. 100 percent. I love that girl. I’m proud of that girl. I was wrong. I will do better.”
“I feel I can breathe again,” said Dominique.
“She has my assurance,” he said. “I love her. We both love her. She’s keeping up her grades. I am sorry. You can tell her (mentioning her name) I want to be her dad again. None of this is her doing. She has our support.”
Later, Haskell said he would “love to talk to her about” the allegations and his actions, adding and repeating, “If she comes home, she gets what she wants.”
“She just doesn’t know why it happened,” said Dominique, alluding to the alleged sexual assaults. “She said you touched her private parts undernearth her underwear.”
“I don’t want to say anything other than I’m sorry,” he said. “This is horrible and you’re in the middle of it.”
Some moments later, he again repeated, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. She’ll be respected 100 percent,” if the girl decides to return to the Haskell home in the Solar Hills neighborhood in Vacaville.
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Toward the end of the recording, Haskell can be heard repeating “I’m so sorry” and “I’ve changed.”
He thanked Dominique for the call, saying “I’m proud of you. You’re a superstar. Thank you for reaching out.”
Just before the noon recess, Maas, a well-known criminal defense attorney in Fairfield, did not comment or address the pretext call during his cross-examination of Dominique.
He instead screened for jurors a video segment of a pinata party in the Haskell’s back yard that did not show Haskell striking his son on the head with a closed fist, as Dominique testified last week.
But she asserted that Haskell was “angry” when he did it.
Throughout her relationship with the Haskell family, Dominique said she remembered Haskell’s “loud shouting” and his calling his son names some “10 to 20 times.”
During the afternoon session, she also recounted how Haskell forced his son to eat oatmeal for two weeks — for breakfast, lunch and dinner — as a type of punishment for him (and also the second-oldest daughter), and pushing the children into the backyard pool during winter and forcing his son and the second-oldest daughter to sleep on a bathroom floor as punishment for bed-wetting.
Dominique told Maas she was unsure of Haskell’s “parenting philosophy” and would often seen him in “agitated and angry” states of mind and behavior.
If convicted, Haskell faces two life prison terms and will be required to register as a sex offender.
The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in the Justice Center in Fairfield.