A 39-year-old San Clemente man who performed weird, raw egg “spiritual cleansing” on two women in a Santa Ana motel that ended in two rapes was sentenced today to 45 years to life in state prison.
The first woman Alberto Flores Ramirez raped in 2012 told him in court today she hopes he finds his crimes worth spending the rest of his life behind bars. She also took pity on him for putting his children and family through this.
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Alberto Flores Ramirez Guilty of Rapes That Began with Raw Egg “Spiritual Cleansing” Rubs
The woman's victim impact statements were supplied by the Orange County District Attorney's office, whose Deputy DA Whitney Bokosky prosecuted the case. I am unsure if she is the same victim who said this today in Paul Anderson's City News Service report from Judge Michael Cassidy's courtroom:
“Feeling (the defendant's) hands on my neck, choking me, I thought no one knows where I am,” she said through a translator. “My children won't see me anymore and, worse, I thought I would go to jail if I defend myself.”
The woman said she was a “victim of mockery and sarcasm when I told my story to paramedics, police and firemen.”
Since the rape, “I live with fear and shame.”
Cassidy told the woman she was “very brave to come forward.”
Ramirez was also heard in court, apologizing for his crimes in a statement read by a translator: “First of all, I would like to ask for forgiveness. There's nothing I can do to repair the harm. … I have made a mistake that cost my freedom and family. … I am sorry from the bottom of my heart.”
On the opening day of his trial in April, jurors were told by attorneys for both sides that the supposed “spiritual cleanser” rubbed raw eggs on desperate women before having sex with them. The question: Was it consensual or rape?
He met a married woman through the Badoo social networking website and arranged a face-to-face meeting on April 3, 2012, at a Santa Ana McDonald's, where he promised he could help her bring her U.S.-born children to California from Mexico through his egg wash. (If I had a nickle for every time I've been offered the same …)
Anyway, this so-called “spiritual cleansing ritual” would “get rid of bad vibes” that were preventing the mother from being reunited with her two children, Ramirez told her. After going to a 99-cent store to pick up eggs and other items to be used in the ritual and dining at a McDonald's, they drove to Santa Ana's Aloha Motel, where Ramirez rubbed eggs on the woman and used photos of the daughters in the ritual.
When he told her it was not working, he had her strip down to her underwear, began fondling her and, over the threat that “something really bad will happen” if she did not capitulate, raped her. Ramirez later apologized and said he was “overcome by her beauty.”
Ramirez gave the woman gas money to get home, and she called the cops. Publicity from the case reached Las Vegas, which prompted a second woman to come forward claiming she was raped by Ramirez during another supposed spiritual ritual with eggs in the same motel. That victim met Ramirez through Facebook, where after confessing she had bad luck with men, he offered to perform the ritual free.
The public defender agreed many facts of the case were not in dispute but offered there were “no witnesses” and “no physical evidence” to prove they were rapes. The woman who met Ramirez through the Badoo site? She displayed no physical signs of having been raped, jurors were told by the defense, and the second woman's account was informed by what she heard on television in Vegas from the first woman's story.
The jury did not by the defense argument, finding Ramirez guilty on April 22 of two felony counts each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, one felony count each of sexual penetration by foreign object by force, attempted forcible oral copulation, and a sentencing enhancement for sex crimes against multiple victims.
Besides the prison time, Ramirez must register as a sex offender for life.
He did catch one break: Those counts could have made him eligible for 81 years to life. Start laying those eggs, chickies!
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
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.