Los Gatos couple pleads to sexual abuse of their adopted Russian orphan

Ralph Flynn and his wife Carolyn Flynn were convicted Tuesday in a last-minute plea deal that spared the South Bay executives — and their victim — a jury trial. Ralph Flynn and his wife Carolyn Flynn were convicted Tuesday in a last-minute plea deal that spared the South Bay executives — and their victim — a jury trial. Photo: Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office Photo: Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close Los Gatos couple pleads to sexual abuse of their adopted Russian orphan 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

A Los Gatos couple accused of adopting a 9-year-old Russian orphan before turning him into a sex slave for the remainder of his childhood was convicted Tuesday in a last-minute plea deal that spared the South Bay executives — and their victim — a jury trial.

Ralph and Carolyn Flynn had faced 44 criminal counts, including felony charges of incest, sexual abuse of a child, unlawful sexual intercourse and lewd and lascivious acts.

Ralph Flynn, 73, pleaded no contest in Santa Clara County Superior Court to three felony counts of lewd acts on a child and faces a 24-year sentence in state prison. Carolyn Flynn pleaded no contest to two counts of rape and faces a 12-year sentence.

Both will be required to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences and register as sex offenders. Attorneys for the couple could not be reached for comment.

The sexual abuse spanned 10 years, with Ralph Flynn initiating the molestation shortly after his adopted son, Denis, left the Russian orphanage and arrived in the United States. Six years later, Carolyn Flynn began to abuse him as well.

Denis, now 25, shared his story with The Chronicle in 2016, after his parents’ arrests, describing the decade he spent as a sex slave in a five-bedroom home on the Lexington Reservoir at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, a Rolls Royce in the garage and a pool out back.

The couple told Denis to keep silent about the assaults and rapes, that what they did was “out of love,” he said. He followed those instructions until he was 19, when he revealed the abuse to a friend and former teachers, who alerted the authorities.

The plea deal came as jury selection loomed Thursday, and was unexpected, Denis said.

“I didn’t celebrate or jump for joy or cry,” he said. “My heart relaxed and all this tension I’ve been carrying all this time evaporated.”

Denis, who works as a massage therapist and lives in the Bay Area, had been bracing himself for months to testify at trial, to relive the horror. Old nightmares returned, he said.

“I was preparing to go to war and go into this battle and now I don’t have to,” he said Wednesday. “I am feeling relief and peace after all these years and excited for the future and building my life up.”

Ralph Flynn, a direct-marketing executive, has been jailed since his arrest in 2015, in lieu of $2.5 million bail. His wife, a high-tech executive, remains free on $525,000 bail and is expected to begin her sentence Nov. 2.

According to the 100-page arrest report, Ralph Flynn admitted to investigators that he not only molested Denis, but decades earlier had adopted another boy and sexually abused him as well. The report included detailed accounts of the abuse.

Both Denis and the other boy told detectives that their adoptive mothers — Flynn’s first and second wives — participated in the molestation. Charges in the first case could not be filed because of California’s statute of limitations.

Santa Clara County prosecutor Oanh Tran said the last-minute pleas took her by surprise. She had expected the trial to last three to four weeks, requiring Denis to testify in detail about the abuse and face two cross-examinations, one from each defense attorney representing his adoptive parents.

He won’t have to go through that, Tran said.

“I’m really happy that Denis is getting justice,” she said. “I’m happy that Ralph and Carolyn both took accountability for what they did.”

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jill tucker