SAN DIEGO -- A judge declared a mistrial Thursday in the case against a 65-year-old man accused of molesting three boys in the late 1990s.

Judge Cynthia Bashant took the action after it was revealed that a juror told fellow panelists during deliberations that he had been the victim of an attempted molestation.

A retrial was set for Aug. 31.

On Wednesday, the jury reached verdicts on 26 of 31 counts against Bimson, saying it was deadlocked on the remaining five charges.

Judge Melinda Lasater, subbing for Bashant, had ordered the verdicts sealed and instructed the panel to return to court today for more deliberations on the unresolved counts.

Bimson faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of 30 counts of oral copulation of a child and one count of committing a lewd act on a child.

He was found last Aug. 18 semiconscious inside a rental car parked on the side of a Las Vegas freeway, with a hose running from the vehicle's exhaust pipe into the passenger compartment, authorities said.

A 25-year-old man testified last week that Bimson -- who took him in from a shelter when he was 13 -- molested him every night for months until he told the defendant he wanted it to stop.

The witness, identified only as Sam, testified that his older brother first met the defendant in 1992 and went to live with him after meeting him through a Big Brother-Big Sister program. He said his family had been living in a shelter because his mother was having drug and emotional problems.

Sometime in 1997 or 1998, Sam said he got a chance to move in with his brother at Bimson's house, but first went on a trip with the defendant to a resort in Tucson so Bimson could see how he acted.

The witness said he and Bimson shared a bed and the defendant molested him early the next morning.

Sam said he didn't say anything because he knew it could affect his moving in with Bimson. Once he did so, the witness said he had to sleep in the same bed with Bimson, who molested him every night.

His older brother Nick and another boy eventually moved out of Bimson's home, and he told the defendant he wanted the molestation to stop, the man testified.

Sam said Bimson told him he wanted to be hugged and shown more affection, but he refused.

He said the defendant took him on trips to Peru, Mexico, Detroit, Las Vegas and San Francisco, and molested him in hotel rooms "whenever there was a chance."

Bimson also bought him clothes, a snowboard and even made a down-payment on a car, he said.

"I was scared what people would think of me," the witness said. "I was terrified of the situation. My whole concern was that I didn't want anybody to know. It was a secret."

He said he confided in his girlfriend at the time about the molestations but still didn't go to the police.

The alleged victim said he ended up telling his brother and some friends after he turned 18, and police set up a pretext call with Bimson.

On that call, Bimson didn't deny that the molestations happened and told Sam that they should get together and talk about things, Deputy District Attorney Wendy Patrick Mazzarella said in her opening statement.

The prosecutor said Bimson was not a philanthropist, but a man who befriended young boys in search of sexual gratification.

In November 2006, Sam's brother Nick called Child Protective Services and told them Bimson had molested him in Arizona, the prosecutor said.

Nick told authorities he called them to make sure Bimson didn't keep taking in foster children, Mazzarella told the jury.

Two other boys testified that Bimson molested them.

But defense attorney Lisa Berman said Bimson was a "wonderful man" who took in broken boys from broken homes.

Bimson was a Rotary International member who believed in the organization's motto "Service Above Self," she said.

"He didn't target these children, he helped children," the attorney told the jury in her opening statement.