Send in the clown . . . so he may be sent to prison for 10 years for admitting to raping a 12-year-old girl.
That's the sentence an Orange County Superior Court judge ordered Wednesday for Jose Guadalupe Jimenez right after the professional clown known as “El Tin Marin” pleaded guilty to, in full clown get-up, snatching the girl from in front of a Fullerton Taco Bell in 2002, forcing her into his car and driving her to an area near a school to rape her.
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See also:
Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, Known as 'El Tin Larin' the Clown, Held in Rape of 12-Year-Old Girl While in Get-Up
Crime Time: Rapers! Robbers! Wife Killer! Bad Cops! And a Real Bozo!
I Had a Dream There Were Clowns in My Cupcakes – A film by Jim Washburn
The 43-year-old Anaheim resident was in full makeup and costume shortly
after midnight on Jan. 19, 2002, when he abducted the girl outside the Taco Bell at Lemon and Commonwealth avenues and drove her to an area near Ladera Vista Junior High School, where he raped her inside the car. Jimenez then drove her to a Fullerton motel, but while he was talking with the desk clerk, she managed to get away.
After Fullerton Police were contacted, the rapist's DNA was taken from the girl, but the investigation went cold for eight years, partly because she could not identify her attacker due to his clown makeup.
Jimenez was taken into custody in November 2010 for an unrelated corporal injury on a child case that was prosecuted by the Anaheim City Attorney's office. Besides spending 180 days in jail after pleading guilty to misdemeanor battery, Jimenez was forced to give up a sample of his DNA. The Orange County Sheriff Forensic Science
Services later linked Jimenez to the 2002 cold case, and Fullerton Police arrested him on March 25, 2011.
Minutes before the clown's March 28, 2011, arraignment, the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) announced that in addition to two felony counts of lewd acts upon a child younger than 14, Jimenez would face felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and forcible lewd act on a child younger than 14. In total, a conviction could have sent him to state prison for 25 years.
However, an OCDA conviction statement revealed that due to “the totality of the evidence of the case, availability of witnesses, and wishes of the victim,” a negotiated plea had Jimenez copping to one felony count of lewd acts upon a child under 14 and one felony count of forcible lewd act on a child under 14.
He will also have to register as a sex offender for life, which likely spells the end of the “El Tin Marin” act. For one thing, the perv tag will prevent him from shaping balloon animals, walking in over-sized shoes and shooting seltzer down his pants at kiddie birthday parties in Orange County parks that have adopted Child Safety Zones. These include all county parks and recreational areas and city parks in Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach,
Irvine, Laguna Hills, Lake Forest, La Habra, Los Alamitos, Mission
Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Westminster and
Yorba Linda.
Now, send away the clown.
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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.