Man accused of causing fatal SLO parking garage fall hid molestation conviction, records say
A 57-year-old man accused by an Atascadero family of plying their 21-year-old son with alcohol before the young man’s fatal fall from a downtown San Luis Obispo parking garage has a criminal history that includes sexually molesting a teen.
Since-expunged court records obtained by The Tribune show that David Allen Knight of Atascadero has a felony court conviction from 2003 for molesting a child under 14 — after a witness told authorities Knight provided alcohol to the minor during a camping trip.
In a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the parents of Thomas Jodry, who died after plummeting off the third or fourth floor of a San Luis Obispo parking structure in 2019, Knight repeatedly denied that he had any criminal convictions, according to a transcript of his testimony during a deposition taken under oath in September.
Knight declined to comment for this article, but his attorney says Knight didn’t think he needed to disclose his 2003 conviction because it was reduced to a misdemeanor years later and has since been expunged.
Though the 2003 criminal complaint states that Knight would have to register as a sex offender if convicted, records show his former attorney successfully argued in court against Knight’s mandatory registration in California’s sex offender registry.
Knight’s past run-ins with the law resemble accusations currently leveled against him by Jodry’s family.
Young man dies after fatal fall from SLO parking garage
A budding photographer, Jodry met up with Knight, who says he used to operate a photography studio, on Sept. 14, 2019, with a plan to view art but ended up at a bar drinking five to six shots of whiskey bought by Knight within an hour, Jodry’s parents say.
Footage from the bar shows that Jodry and Knight had a falling out, his parents say, and Jodry left the bar abruptly. Shortly thereafter, witnesses told 911 dispatchers they saw a person lying on the sidewalk after falling from the parking structure on the corner of Chorro and Marsh streets.
Jodry had a blood alcohol level of 0.38 — almost five times the legal limit to drive — at the time of his death, his family says.
The San Luis Obispo Police Department ruled out criminal activity within two days, according to court documents, and Jodry’s death was ruled a suicide by the San Luis Obispo County Coroner’s Office in October 2019.
But further investigation by the coroner led the county to change its ruling on Jodry’s manner of death from suicide to “undetermined” in January 2020 due to an absence of any evidence, including garage surveillance cameras, to help investigators determine for certain whether Jodry intentionally jumped, accidentally fell or was pushed.
The San Luis Obispo Police Department has denied The Tribune’s requests for details about the case, but the agency cleared Knight of wrongdoing after he was interviewed by a San Luis Obispo police detective in the days following Jodry’s death, according to court documents.
Knight denies having anything to do with Jodry’s death and accuses the Jodry family of harassing him. San Luis Obispo Superior Court judges have denied two separate requests by Knight for restraining orders against the family.
Knight also unsuccessfully requested a judge’s order to prevent the Jodrys from continuing to wage a social media campaign pursuing information about their son’s death, including asking the community for information about Knight.
Bill and Mary Jane Jodry accuse the San Luis Obispo Police Department of conducting a shoddy investigation into their son’s death, and say the police reports shared with them show that Knight walked up to an officer at the scene of the fall but said he didn’t want his name published in any reports.
Knight arrived at the Jodry family’s Atascadero home hours later and returned Thomas Jodry’s cell phone before refusing to communicate further with the family, they said.
Knight’s behavior, and the circumstances under which Knight ended up mentoring Jodry, have led the young man’s parents to seek information about Knight, 36 years their son’s senior. Justice 4 Thomas, a community group not directly affiliated with the Jodry family, is also seeking witnesses and information about the case.
What Atascadero man’s criminal records show
The Tribune sought San Luis Obispo Superior Court records for Knight, but records for three cases identified by court staff from 1987, 1997 and 2003 have been expunged and are no longer available to the public.
A public records request to the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office, however, was answered with several records from the 2003 case, which originated with the Atascadero Police Department.
According to a criminal complaint, Knight was charged in April 2003 with felony counts of continuous sexual abuse of a minor and oral copulation of a person under 16. The complaint alleges that between 1993 and 1996, Knight engaged in three or more acts of “substantial sexual conduct” with a child under the age of 14.
A probation officer’s report provided by the District Attorney’s Office shows that Knight pleaded no contest to the oral copulation charge and was sentenced to 120 days in San Luis Obispo County Jail.
The report states that, in December 2002, the Atascadero Police Department conducted an investigation after speaking to a victim whose name and gender are redacted, as is Knight’s relation to the victim.
The victim told authorities that Knight masturbated with the victim between 15 and 30 times and orally copulated the victim on two occasions. After the victim told Knight they were uncomfortable, the activity stopped when the victim was 15 years old, the report says.
One unidentified witness told police that they had been camping with the victim and Knight when Knight bought alcohol for them and discussed masturbation with them, according to the report.
The victim conducted a pretext phone call to Knight in coordination with police, during which Knight reportedly admitted the conduct and apologized to the victim, saying the issue had been haunting him and making him “feel like a monster,” the report says.
In an interview with a probation officer at the conclusion of his case, Knight told the officer the sexual relationship with the victim was consensual and a “one-time thing,” and suggested that the victim had lied to him about their age.
The officer wrote that Knight’s crime “involved great violence, great bodily harm, threat of great bodily harm, or other acts disclosing a high degree of cruelty, viciousness, or callousness.”
That report also states Knight has a 1997 conviction for misdemeanor disturbing the peace, which the report says “pertains to the same victim/victim’s family.”
Other records provided by the District Attorney’s Office shows that Knight’s defense attorney in June 2006 motioned the court to lift the mandatory registration requirement from Knight due to a state Supreme Court case that rendered unconstitutional the mandatory registration for defendants convicted of non-forced oral copulation on minors aged 16 or 17.
It remains unclear why that motion was granted given the criminal complaint says the victim was under the age of 14 when the molestation began.
Another record shows that in October 2007, Knight successfully motioned the court to reduce his felony oral copulation conviction to a misdemeanor.
The Tribune has an ongoing records request with the Atascadero Police Department for any records from the case.
David Knight denies criminal record in deposition
In a sworn deposition taken via Zoom on Sept. 21, Knight explicitly denied ever being convicted or arrested of a criminal offense, even one that was expunged.
Depositions are a process employed in civil cases to obtain a party’s sworn testimony in advance of a trial.
According to a transcript of the proceeding, Eric Parkinson, an attorney representing the Jodrys in their wrongful death lawsuit, asked Knight if he had ever been convicted of a felony.
“No,” Knight said, according to the transcript.
“Have you ever had a criminal conviction for anything amounting to fraud?” Parkinson asked, to which Knight said, “No.”
“Or sexual assault?” Parkinson asked.
“No,” Knight said.
“You’ve never been arrested for sexual assault?”
“No,” he said.
“Have you ever been arrested for sexual molestation or harassment?” Parkinson asked.
“No,” Knight replied.
Knight also answered no in response to similar questions submitted to him in writing in a legal set of form interrogatories, also a sworn document, in May.
On Sunday, Parkinson told The Tribune that Knight’s statements during the deposition are significant because of what they may reveal about his credibility as a witness and the veracity of his testimony on other topics.
“A witness who is caught lying about one issue is more likely to have lied about other issues,” Parkinson said.
Asked about the issue Monday, San Luis Obispo County assistant district attorney Eric Dobroth said his agency never reviewed the Jodry case because no criminal referral was made by the San Luis Obispo Police Department.
As such, Dobroth said he could not comment directly on the case, but said that in general, perjury requires that a defendant willfully tell an untruth while under oath, and that the lie or line of questioning be material to the proceedings.
Dobroth said that, in general, a person with a criminal record who is asked under oath in a civil proceeding whether they’ve ever been arrested or convicted should answer in the affirmative — whether or not the case was expunged.
“From a legal perspective, an expungement undoes a conviction but it doesn’t change the fact that the person was convicted,” Dobroth said, noting that in certain situations, such as applying for employment, people are not required to disclose convictions that have been expunged. “But I don’t think (an expungement) makes an arrest disappear.”
Attorney says child molestation conviction is irrelevant
Knight declined to comment when contacted by phone Sunday, but referred questions to his Santa Barbara-based attorney, Lora Hemphill.
She confirmed Knight’s 2003 molestation conviction but said Monday that Knight didn’t believe he had to disclose the record because it was expunged. She said her client disputes that he was arrested or charged for a 1987 offense.
Hemphill said that, regardless of his criminal record, Knight is not culpable for Jodry’s death, which she called a suicide.
“His past history has nothing to do with what happened to Thomas Jodry that night,” Hemphill said. “There’s no evidence of anything other than two adults hanging out on the night (of Jodry’s death).”
She said that Knight first met Thomas Jodry after buying cacti from his blooming succulent business, and that it was Jodry who suggested the two view art together on Sept. 14, 2019.
Hemphill previously called Jodry’s death “heartbreaking and tragic,” but said Bill and Mary Jane Jodry have made “very serious allegations” against her client, who she said has been cooperative. She told The Tribune in September that the Jodrys haven’t been willing to “have a civil conversation” with Knight.
Mary Jane Jodry, Thomas’s mother, said Tuesday that Knight’s criminal history is relevant to the events leading up to her son’s death.
“His criminal history is almost exactly the same method he used on Thomas,” she said. “He had no intention of sticking to Thomas’s plan to look at art.”
She said that Knight instead planned to get her son “beyond intoxication to gain physical control over him.”
The Jodry family is asking anyone who witnessed Thomas and Knight together on Sept. 14, 2019 — during Cal Poly’s Week of Welcome event — to contact them at 805-461-9058, or through their website justiceforthomas.com.
A case management conference in the Jodrys’ wrongful death case is scheduled for February.
