Nicholas Robert Bowen. Courtesy photo

The July arrests of two state workers on suspicion of indecent exposure at a Davis park have led to federal child exploitation charges against the pair, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento announced Wednesday.

Two federal criminal complaints unsealed Wednesday allege that 30-year-old Wenyi Xu of Folsom made sexually explicit images of her own child, and that she and her co-defendant, Nicholas Robert Bowen, shared that and other child pornography material over a six-month period between Jan. 1 and July 10, the day of their arrests near Davis’ Community Park.

That day, authorities allege, Xu exposed herself to young boys — as many as five, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by The Enterprise — riding their bicycles in the park, while Bowen, a 62-year-old resident of Grizzly Flats in El Dorado Hills, captured the acts on camera.

They were caught after a worker who witnessed the incident called police, who arrested the pair as they walked toward their vehicle north of the park. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges including lewd conduct, child annoyance and conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor.

The federal charges are not expected to impact that case, Yolo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven said.

Xu is being represented in the federal case by David W. Dratman, who declined to comment Wednesday. The listed phone number for Robert Blasier, Bowen’s attorney, was disconnected.

Yolo County District Attorney investigators who seized the pair’s cell phones as well as Bowen’s computer discovered multiple images of child pornography, including pictures of Xu’s young, unclothed daughter that were taken inside her Folsom home on June 22, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.

The document says that Bowen, who became intimately involved with the married Xu about a year ago after meeting on a light-rail train in Folsom, “told (Xu) that he was sexually aroused by sexually explicit images of 10- to 12-year-olds” that were saved on his computer.

Bowen and Xu were free on bail during a pretrial hearing last week in Yolo Superior Court but are now in federal custody, with Xu due in court Friday for a hearing to determine whether she poses a flight risk and should be released on bail, according to Lauren Horwood, spokeswoman for Benjamin B. Wagner, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California.

A pretrial hearing for Bowen, deemed by the court a “danger to the community and a flight risk,” is set for Sept. 23, Horwood said.

And while the pair face only indecent-exposure charges in Yolo County, the Davis incident was not the first time Xu had exposed herself to children while Bowen recorded it, according to the affidavit.

The first occurred last spring at a Folsom-area elementary school, “where Xu attempted to expose herself to boys in the area,” the document says. “When Xu asked why he was videotaping her exposing herself to boys, Bowen replied that it was in order for him to get ‘excited later.’ ”

For the Davis incident, both Bowen and Xu were equipped with eyeglasses that had cameras built into them, the affidavit says. Xu reportedly told police following her arrest that the pair initially tried to find boys in the Davis High School parking lot before moving on to Community Park, where Xu “exposed herself to approximately four or five boys between the ages of 10 and 12″ while Bowen recorded her.

Bowen, who has a history of drunken-driving, theft and drug-related arrests in Sacramento County, was working as a branch manager for the California Department of Public Health at the time of his arrest. Xu was employed as a researcher for the state Department of Health Services.

If convicted, both Bowen and Xu face anywhere from five to 20 years in prison, while Xu also could receive 15 to 30 years if found guilty of producing a sexually explicit image, Horwood said. Each charge also carries a potential fine of up to $250,000 and a lifetime period of supervised release.

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

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