Was self-proclaimed pedophile lurking in park?

Book closed on Valley case

A man resembling self-proclaimed pedophile Jack McClellan was reportedly spotted with a camera in the girls dressing room of a Northridge park building two months ago, an LAPD officer confirmed Monday.

A woman reported the incident to investigators who closed the case after determining that no crime was committed, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, Sgt. Lee Sands, said.

Neither police nor the woman ever made a positive identification of McClellan, Sands said.

Valencia attorney Anthony D. Zinnanti, who won a temporary restraining order against McClellan last week that prompted McClellan to leave the state, questioned whether enough was done to identify the man at the Northridge Recreation Center.

Zinnanti said Maryam Seyedhosseini told him over the weekend that she became suspicious when she saw a man with a camera at the center where girls had been getting ready for a rehearsal June 4. She later saw McClellan's face on the news and believed he was the man with the camera.

Seyedhosseini, who told police June 11 about the incident, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Zinnanti said investigators failed to press Seyedhosseini for better information or a positive identification of McClellan. McClellan flew to Chicago Friday after Zinnanti got the order barring him from being within 30 feet of a minor child within California.

"They never did any follow-up," Zinnanti said.

Sands said not all of the details of the investigation were available Monday. But he said Seyedhosseini didn't provide a positive identification of McClellan; nor was she asked to pick him out of a group or a "six pack" of photos.

"Just because she wasn't shown a six pack doesn't mean (an investigation) wasn't done," Sands said.

He said he didn't know of any notification to the surrounding community, but said McClellan's activities had been widely publicized by that time.

McClellan, 45, has not been convicted of any crimes relating to pedophilia, but did operate a Web site that listed and rated various locations for watching children.

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