One young woman told a detective that Robert Adams would routinely place her on his lap at his Citrus Heights school and reach up under her shirt to rub her chest area.
A former teacher told another detective she took a young girl to him with a skinned knee and watched as his hand slid up from her knee to under her skirt.
The allegations against Adams - a jovial principal and owner of the Creative Frontiers K-6 school who is still referred to in court as "Mr. Bob" - continued in Sacramento Superior Court today as his preliminary hearing entered its fourth day.
The hearing before Judge Kevin J. McCormick is to determine whether there is enough evidence to order Adams to face trial on six felony molestation counts and one misdemeanor charge.
It may conclude later today following the testimony of Citrus Heights police Detective Nicole Garing, who recouted earlier today a conversation she had with a former teacher at the school.
Garing testified that as part of the 2011 investigation that led to the charges she interviewed former teacher Bethany Solomon, who indicated she had taken a girl between 2 and 3 to Adams' office for a skinned knee.
During the incident, which occurred years before, Solomon saw Adams start rubbing the girl's knee, then moved his hand up further under girl's skirt until only his little finger was visible, Garing said Solomon told her.
The teacher became "extremely uncomfortable," Garing said, and grabbed the girl, saying, "You're good, let's go."
Adams, 61, has denied any wrongdoing and his defense attorney, Linda Parisi, noted that the teacher - who is required under state law to report any inappropriate behavior with children - never confronted Adams or reported the incident at the time.
The testimony is the latest to come as Parisi tried to counter evidence against her client and prosecutor Kevin Jones attempts to show that he must face trial.
Earlier today, Citrus Heights police Detective William Sanderson concluded his testimony about interviews he did last month with two alleged victims. Both are 21-year-old women who were about 8 at the time of a 2000 investigation into claims that Adams had molested them.
That 2000 case did not result in charges, but the allegations are included in the current case.
Sanderson said one of the women told him that Adams used to put her on his lap in his office and place his hand under her shirt and rub her chest.
"She couldnt get away from him," Sanderson said of the girl, who was 6 or 7 and in the 2nd grade. "She also stated she had to force her way away from him."
The alleged victim, now 21, said it happened every time she went to the office and that Adams would talk to her as he molested her.
"He said that she was a good girl and that the school was lucky to have her," Sanderson said.
But Parisi brought up a series of inconsistencies from both alleged victims' claims.
She noted that one of the women, as a girl in 2000, used a drawing of a naked girl to diagram where she was touched.
Parisi said the girl drew a circle around the area under her neck and around her stomach, not around her breast area, and got Sanderson to concede he didn't ask her about that discrepancy.
The hearing is scheduled to resume at 1:30 p.m. after the court lunch break and may conclude today.
Call The Bee's Sam Stanton, (916) 321-1091. Follow him on Twitter @stantonsam.
Photo caption: Robert B. Adams and his attorney Linda Parisi, left, make a brief appearance in court on Oct. 7, 2011. Photo by Randy Pench
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