Recaptured Man Given 30 Years on Sex Charges

A man who disappeared in 1998 the day he was to be sentenced in Riverside for child molestation and who then married a multimillionaire was sentenced Friday to 30 years in state prison.

Linden Uriah Sawyer, 40, was arrested in November when Riverside County sheriff’s investigators received a tip that he had changed his last name to Pullam and had married Heidi Ludwick, an heiress to the Rain Bird Corp. sprinkler company. The couple were living in a hilltop mansion in Easley Canyon in Glendora.

Glendora-based Rain Bird is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of irrigation equipment.

“He was living large,” said Carlos Monagas, a deputy district attorney in Riverside County. “He wasn’t working. He was living off their fortune.”

Sawyer fled in July 1998, less than a month after pleading guilty to 29 counts of a lewd act with a child, one count of child molestation and one count of rape of a person who was unconscious. The crimes were committed against four girls. Under terms of a plea bargain, he was scheduled to be sentenced to 14 years in prison.

In Riverside County Superior Court on Friday, one of Sawyer’s victims told Judge Gary Tranbarger: “Every day he was missing, I was wondering if he was waiting for me somewhere.”

Sawyer’s attorney said that his client was remorseful and had committed no other crimes while he evaded the law.

John Harrold, a former Glendora mayor who attended the sentencing, urged his city’s Police Department to investigate Sawyer’s actions during his five-year absence. D. Wayne Leech, Glendora city attorney, said he would confer with the city manager about a possible investigation.

Ludwick did not attend the sentencing, and a Rain Bird spokesman was not available for comment.