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Alleged child rapist never a SEAL, Navy says

The quarry of a nationwide police manhunt, accused of videotaping himself raping a 3-year old girl, was never a Navy SEAL as he claimed and authorities have reported, the Navy said Tuesday.

The suspect, Chester Arthur Stiles, 37, spent less than a year in the Navy from 1988 to 1989, but there is no record of him graduating from Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, a Navy spokesman said. Records show Stiles was discharged from the Navy as an engineman fireman recruit.

Las Vegas police say Stiles filmed himself four years ago molesting a 3-year-old girl; the tape appeared in September when a 26-year-old man named Darrin Tuck turned it in to authorities, claiming he’d “found it in the desert.” But authorities said Tuck had the tape for as long as five months and had shown it to people before turning it in to law enforcement.

The story gained wide exposure on the cable news networks when Las Vegas authorities released images from the tape of the girl, hoping someone would see them and identify her. On Tuesday, Jerry Donohue, a lawyer for the girl’s mother, said the girl was now fine and the mother hadn’t known about the alleged rape.

Donohue said the incident probably occurred while the girl’s mother was at work.

Las Vegas police said Stiles has been arrested several times since 1999, charged with assault, battery, resisting a police officer, car theft, leaving the scene of an accident and contempt of court.

He was convicted in 1999 in Las Vegas of carrying a concealed weapon, and in 2001 of conspiracy to commit grand larceny, according to court records. Stiles also pleaded no contest in Houston in 1993 to unlawful carrying of a weapon.

Stiles is “a survivalist type who isn’t bothered by living without electricity or water, and always carries a fighting-type knife,” said Bob Beckett, district attorney of Nye County, Nev.