Los Gatos man admits molesting 2 adopted sons, police say
By Jill Tucker
A Los Gatos sales executive and onetime coffee shop owner accused of molesting a Russian orphan he adopted has admitted to investigators that decades earlier he adopted another boy and sexually abused him as well, police reports say.
The report includes detailed accounts that both of Flynn’s adopted sons provided to investigators, describing similar stories of abuse. Both told detectives that their adoptive mothers — Flynn’s first and second wives — participated in the molestation, an aspect of the case that child-abuse experts called unusual.
Flynn and his second wife, Carolyn Flynn, a 47-year-old tech-sales manager, were arrested in November. They face a combined 44 felony counts related to the alleged sexual abuse of Denis Flynn, 23, the former Russian orphan, who has decided to share his story publicly while pursuing a lawsuit against the couple.
Statute of limitations
The first adopted son is not named in the report, and attempts by The Chronicle to reach him were unsuccessful. He told police he did not report the abuse in the past, and charges cannot be filed now because of California’s statute of limitations.
Ralph Flynn, who once owned a popular coffee roastery in Cupertino before building a career in the controversial field of multilevel marketing, also has two grown biological sons, one with each wife. No allegations of abuse have been made related to those sons.
Attorneys for the couple declined to comment on the case or the contents of the arrest report, as did county prosecutors, citing a court-imposed gag order. The Chronicle received the report from a person who said the Santa Clara County Superior Court had at one point made it available as a public record. The person requested anonymity.
Ralph Flynn’s first wife did not return a telephone message seeking comment.
The case came to light last year after Denis Flynn wrote a letter to several friends as well as a former teacher and principal, describing years of abuse. The educators, after attending a training session on mandatory reporting of abuse months later, realized they needed to go to authorities, according to the sheriff’s report.
The subsequent investigation included interviews with witnesses as well as a staged, pretext phone call Denis Flynn made to his adoptive parents while being recorded by detectives. Carolyn Flynn denied the allegations in an interview with investigators, according to the report.
During their interviews with investigators, both Denis Flynn and the other alleged victim, who was adopted from New Jersey, told investigators that the abuse started shortly after they were brought into Ralph Flynn’s home — in 2002 for Denis and 1972 for the other son.
Both boys, who were between 7 and 9 years old, said they were called into the master bedroom, where Ralph Flynn initiated sexual contact, and that the abuse continued consistently for 10 years and included masturbation and oral sex.
Ralph Flynn would bribe the boys with money, activities or desired items to coerce their participation, according to their accounts. When the boys were older, their adoptive mothers started to molest them as well, they said.
“I was probably 11 years old,” the first adopted son told investigators of his mother’s participation, according to the report. “There was sex, um, intercourse and activity, uh, among the three of us.”
Denis Flynn said he was 15 when Carolyn Flynn had sex with him while Ralph Flynn watched. “That was my first time,” Denis Flynn told investigators. “I lost my virginity to my mom.”
The arrest report also details the phone calls Denis Flynn made to his parents that were recorded by investigators. After Denis Flynn told told his adoptive father that police were asking questions, Ralph Flynn became “increasingly more panicked,” according to the report.
“How would anyone know anything?” Ralph Flynn reportedly asked the younger man, while telling him to lie to police. “I do not want to go to jail. They will take me to jail. You know what will happen if you say anything like whatever really happened, then I’m gone forever.”
‘A private matter’
He told Denis Flynn to deny any intimacy, the report states. “Nobody knows anything but you, me and mom,” Ralph Flynn allegedly said. “Those are the only people that really know the truth.”
Ralph Flynn then handed the phone to his wife, who was “harsh,” and told Denis Flynn not to tell police anything, because it would destroy the family, according to the report.
“When Denis told Carolyn the police know about them having sex, she told him to tell the police that (it) is a private matter and (to say) I don’t want to talk about it,” a sheriff’s investigator wrote.
Interviewed after his arrest, Ralph Flynn initially denied the allegations made by Denis Flynn and said he had not had any other adopted children, the report states. He told investigators he was a loving and caring father.
But investigators pressed him to describe how he expressed his love. Ralph Flynn acknowledged that he touched both Denis Flynn and the first adopted son sexually, according to the report. “Yes, yes, in a loving way,” he said, adding that this included masturbation and oral sex.
He denied Carolyn Flynn was involved and said he wasn’t a pedophile. “It was the acceptance of wanting to have something intimate and kind of bonding,” he told investigators.
Ralph Flynn has been in custody since his November arrest and held on a $2.5 million bond. Carolyn Flynn was released on a $525,000 bond. Neither has entered a plea, with their next court hearing scheduled for July.
Little consolation
Denis Flynn said he was frustrated by the slow pace of the criminal proceeding and that his adopted father’s alleged confession didn’t offer much solace.
“It’s still a mental, emotional scar that I have to carry,” he said in an online message. “I lived it, I experienced his crazy and horrific attitude first hand. If anything, that brought peace to people that I’ve told about my story before. To me, it’s still a journey.”
Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker