Akeem Jelani
Johnson, the Tustin 28-year-old who raped a drunken Australian tourist in the back of a car before dumping her in an alley behind Godfather's Bar, was sentenced today to eight years in state prison and mandatory
lifetime registration as a sex offender.
A jury last month convicted Johnson of one
felony count of rape of an intoxicated woman.
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Between 10 and 11 p.m. on Nov. 25, 2010–just after Thanksgiving–Johnson was drinking with friends at Godfather's, where he met the 47-year-old woman who was in town visiting
friends and obviously drunk.
Johnson escorted her outside to
his parked SUV just after midnight, when he raped her in the backseat before
convincing a couple buddies to help him lift and carry the woman to the alley.
She was passed out as she was dumped onto an old, dirty mattress.
Two people were later arrested for the rape, but the charge against Johnson was the only one that stuck.
“My confident nature has taken a beating,” the Aussie woman wrote in a victim's impact statement read as Johnson was being convicted. “I
become anxious around male strangers. I have trouble functioning without
fear and anxiety in unfamiliar surroundings and become nervous of
anyone coming too close to my personal space… This whole ordeal has
changed me for life. I will never be the same person I was before
Thanksgiving 2010.”
Neither will he. For one thing, as a registered sex offender, Johnson will be
barred from city and county parks that have enacted child safety zones.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.