Photo by Bob Weatherston

Jack Doshay was medicated at his September 2015 court hearing, according to his attorney.

The little girl was seven years old when she was grabbed by a man she later described as “dumb and stupid.” The 22-year-old man first approached her on a Monday afternoon in March 2015 while she walked toward her after-school chess class at Skyline Elementary School in Solana Beach. He pulled her toward a school garden area where he covered her mouth with his hand. He told her, “If you want to see your mom again you have to do this,” and he attempted to duct-tape her mouth. But the girl yelled and the man ran. School workers saw a white male running away from the screaming child. They saw the man get into a Ford Flex that was parked in the school parking lot and drive away.

How to duct-tape people

The attempt to kidnap a child on school grounds was widely publicized in San Diego County. The sheriff quickly released a description of the incident and a sketch of the suspect. Three days later, a psychologist contacted the sheriff’s department. The mental health professional told authorities that he had been contacted by a man named Glenn Doshay who said that the kidnapping suspect might be his 22-year-old son — who he said had “done something like this before.” Glenn reportedly said that his son Jack drove a Ford Flex, that he had shaved off his beard that same day, and had recently made an internet search on “how to duct-tape people,” the psychologist reported.

Jack Doshay on April 9, 2015

The day after the psychologist contacted authorities, officials arrived with warrants at the home of the Doshays in Rancho Santa Fe. Glenn Doshay is a wealthy businessman and a minority owner of the San Diego Padres. Jack Doshay, who lived at his parents’ home, is one of three sons. Officials took away cell phones, iPads, computers, and personal items used by Jack, including his toothbrush. When officers asked the whereabouts of their son, Glenn and his wife Karen told them to contact their attorney.

Two days after the warrant search and a week after the kidnap attempt, Jack Doshay voluntarily checked himself into a home used as a treatment facility in Orange County’s Laguna Niguel, down the street from a public school.

Sheriff’s composite sketch of suspect

Another two days after that, on April 1, 2015, San Diego County investigators arrested him there. He soon bailed out and spent the next 779 days in “residential treatment.” A little more than two years after the crime, he made a plea deal in which he admitted to comitting two felonies: kidnapping and assault on a child with intent to commit a lewd act. As part of the plea deal, he agreed to a sentence of ten years and four months. His 779 days in treatment will count toward his custody time. Jack Doshay must also register as a sex offender. The judge ordered him to pay $28,530 in restitution to his victim. According to court documents, the little girl has been getting therapy several days a week at a cost of $150 per visit. Her parents will also be compensated for the new home security system they bought in an effort to overcome their child’s “nightmares and insomnia.”

At his May 31, 2017, sentencing, Jack Doshay’s defense attorney Paul Pfingst told reporters, “Jack Doshay had a severe mental illness at that time. Since that time, with care and treatment, that mental illness has been lifted and there is a different person than there was two years ago.”

Orgies, prostitutes, and porn addiction

It was quite a claim on Pfingst’s part — that a little over two years of treatment had cured a man deranged enough to attempt to abduct a seven-year-old girl — especially given that authorities assessed him as a “moderate-to-high risk” of becoming a repeat offender. Also disturbing are details that have surfaced about Doshay as part of the court proceedings. According to a report found in his case file, while he was staying at the home in Laguna Niguel prior to his arrest he told a roommate that he had been released from a psych ward where he was treated for depression, that his attorney advised him not to tell anyone, that he expected to be arrested soon, and that he might be facing three to six years. He had a good lawyer, he told the roommate, and might get only one year. The roommate recalled Doshay saying, “it would make his case look better” if he stayed at the treatment center prior to arrest.

The roommate reported that Doshay self-identified as a sex addict and a porn addict. He “hired a lot of prostitutes in the San Diego area” although “the prettiest girls were in Japan and he ‘got lucky’ a lot when he went there during high school,” the source reported Jack to have said. He added that Jack bragged about “having orgies” and paying for a threesome while he was in Amsterdam, according to the informant.

Jack is an animal lover

In the case file for Jack Doshay, there are 14 letters addressed to the judge to read before sentencing. Friends of the family and parents of Jack’s school friends and mental-health professionals who treated Jack all sent the supportive letters.

Two of the letters are from Jack’s parents, one each from Karen and Glenn. Both are typewritten, closely spaced, and two full pages.

Karen Doshay began her letter: “My son, Jack Doshay, is not a monster.”

Her son is “gentle,” she informed the judge. Jack is an animal lover who donated all the money gifts from his bar mitzvah to the Helen Woodward Animal Shelter — a gesture reported in the Union-Tribune. Mom stated that she acquired cats, dogs, lizards, birds, rabbits, and turtles to please her animal-loving son. Jack was musically gifted and he played saxophone in local gigs until his arrest, Karen attested.

Karen stated that she and the rest of the family all knew that Jack was “socially awkward.” Jack never got into any physical altercations, but they knew it was hard for him to make friends. There was one time when Jack was away at college in another state he got so lonely that he attempted suicide by going to the train tracks and waited there for a train to hit him. He phoned his mother to say goodbye. But she called campus police, who were able to find Jack and take him to a psychiatric facility. The Doshays brought their son home after that scare.

According to his parents, Jack was getting psychological treatment at the time he grabbed the girl at Skyline Elementary.

Karen described the incident this way: “In March of 2015 (during the period he was seeing a psychologist weekly), he stopped at an elementary school on his way back from class and attempted to kidnap a seven-year-old girl from the campus. Thankfully, she screamed and he fled before she was molested or kidnapped.” She informed the judge, “He feels remorse of his actions and has accepted and taken responsibility for what he has done.”

Karen said her son has been “transformed” since his arrest. Since then he has gotten better psychiatric help — and a new diagnosis: autism. “He is finally at peace with himself. I think the diagnosis helped him understand his social challenges and the ensuing depression. Once at The Crosby facility, they got him on the right medication and he saw therapists multiple times a week.”

Karen said she looks forward one day to helping her son realize his dream of opening an animal shelter, after he gets out of prison.

Extremely sensitive and caring

In his letter, Glenn Doshay wrote that his son “ALWAYS got along better with animals than people....

“Jack is actually an extremely sensitive and caring individual and never had a violent incident in his whole life until this,” Glenn wrote.

He also expressed resentment at the lack of effective help from all the professionals they had reached out to, over the years, trying to help their son. Previously the parents had been told that their son Jack had “slow development of social skills,” it was “anxiety,” or they were told it was attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. “I am deeply disappointed with mental health professionals who misdiagnosed Jack and misled us on his ‘progress.’”

Glenn revealed that he had regular visits with his son after he was arrested and put into another level of treatment. Glenn stated that while Jack was in the new, intensive therapy, those meetings were “some of the most enjoyable and enlightening time I have been able to share with him in his whole life….” Glenn now cherishes that year of two-hour weekly visits he enjoyed with his son, because he does not expect to get those quality visits while Jack is in prison. Since July 10, Jack has been incarcerated at the state prison in Chino.

Glenn said Jack “continuously struggled to keep up with what he saw as the pressures and expectations of a high achieving family. He believed he existed in the shadow of his brothers and no one recognized his travails. All these ultimately resulted in ideations and half-hearted attempts at suicide.”

Glenn said he knows that his son “clearly crossed the line” and “what Jack did was reprehensible…. That being said, I can honestly say I will never fully comprehend what was behind Jack’s actions because I truly believe that to this day he does not fully understand it.”

Glenn Doshay said his family has relocated from the home and community they loved. “I am sad our life and the life of our other two sons have been thrown into upheaval.... This is an event that will forever stamp not just Jack, but our whole family, one for which Jack feels great remorse and it would be beyond superfluous to say we all wish didn’t happen....

“I would be lying if I said I did not feel some anger and resentment for all that we have gone through,” Glenn wrote. “I am upset with a media that has judged and misportrayed our family.”