By PAUL ANDERSON
(Flickr: steakpinball)
A Perris man was convicted today of deliberately crashing his car into a minivan in Huntington Beach so he could sexually assault the 17-year-old girl behind the wheel.
Rasaan Raymon Patton, 31, was convicted of kidnapping to commit a sex offense, attempted forcible rape, sexual penetration by foreign object by force and sexual battery by restraint, Orange County Deputy District Attorney Jana Hoffmann said.
Patton faces life in prison when he is sentenced Aug. 24, Hoffmann said.
Still to be determined is how his prior conviction for rape by intoxication in 1999 in Riverside County will affect how many years he will spend in prison before being eligible for parole, Hoffmann said.
The victim testified that she was driving home in her family’s Toyota minivan about 2:40 a.m. on June 21, 2008, when she saw a car closely trailing her. The car bumped the minivan and she got out to inspect the damage.
“I was scared there would be damage and my parents would be mad,” she tearfully testified.
The minivan’s bumper was just scuffed, she said.
Patton apologized, and “I think I told him there wasn’t very much damage,” she testified.
Patton then “pulled me by the waist,” pushing her up against the vehicle, as he steadied himself with his left hand, she said.
“He kept asking me if he was going too far and I said, `Yes,’ ” she testified. “I asked him to stop repeatedly and he wouldn’t.”
Her attacker put one hand on her buttocks, then pulled up her dress, moved her underwear aside and sexually assaulted her with two fingers, she testified.
About six to seven cars passed by and it appears he got “spooked,” so he stopped, them allowed the victim to leave, Hoffmann said.
The girl called friends when she got home and then reported the assault to police in the afternoon, the prosecutor said.
Patton, meanwhile, was pulled over about 3 a.m. in Huntington Beach. He was cited for an unsafe turn and driving on a suspended license, and his car was impounded, Hoffmann said.
Despite Patton’s prior conviction, police did not get an immediate match on fingerprints left on the victim’s vehicle, the prosecutor said. It wasn’t until April 2009, when Patton was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, that a fingerprint match linked him to the sexual assault, she said.
Deputy Public Defender Scott Belasco said his client was so grateful to the victim for not calling police about the collision that he hugged her.
Patton, who lived in Riverside County at the time with his wife and three children, “misread the woman he had contact with,” Belasco said.
“When he realized (the victim) was uncomfortable, he stopped.”
Loading ...
