Three Child Rapists and a Girlfriend Accused of Helping a Fourth

A San Clemente man was sentenced to 70 years in state prison last week for the continuous sexual abuse of four boys under age 14.

A Long Beach man is looking at the possibility of 50 years to life after being convicted last week of having a sexual relationship with a female relative starting when she was 9 and ending two years later when she was seen performing a sex act on him on a popular Disneyland ride.

A 79-year-old Chicago man was found guilty by a jury in Westminster last week of sexually assaulting a female relative since she was age 7, with all the crimes having occurred in Orange County.

A Huntington Beach woman is accused of lying under oath to protect her boyfriend, who was sentenced in March to 46 years to life for continually raping and sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl in his girlfriend’s care.

Uriel Ruiz Ricardez, 26, was arrested on Sept. 10, 2015, when Orange County sheriff’s deputies only knew of a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old victim because their parents had reported the sexual abuse. After Ricardez’s arrest, two 11-year-old victims were uncovered. The San Clemente man had been acquainted with the boys’ families before the crimes happened between August 2014 and September 2015.  He was convicted on four counts of continuous sexual abuse and lewd acts upon a child under 14. Besides the 70-year sentence, he must register as a sex offender for life.

Johnny Lawrence Johnson, 47, sexually assaulted a 9-year-old Texas girl when she visited him in Long Beach the summer of 2013 and again in the summer of 2014. They are related, and he had actually been living with her family when, on March 12, 2015, a man jumped off the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, which prompted a cast member to summon a supervisor for help. Through a hidden camera on the attraction, it was discovered—totally unrelated to the jumping man—that the girl was performing a sex act on Johnson near the graveyard scene at the time. Though most of the abuse discovered in the investigation that followed happened in Los Angeles County, the Orange County District Attorney’s office prosecuted the case. Johnson was convicted Thursday of four counts of lewd acts on a child younger than 14 and two counts of having sex with a child 10 or younger, all felonies. Deputy District Attorney Rick Zimmer says Johnson could get 50 to life at sentencing scheduled for Dec. 11.

John Walker Gunn is the 79-year-old Chicago man who sexually assaulted a female relative since she was age 7 and was convicted Wednesday of 17 felonies, including rape, sexual intercourse with a child 10 years or younger, aggravated sexual assault of a child and lewd acts upon a child. He began by fondling and caressing her, and the abuse escalated until she reached age 10, when he began raping her. The sexual assaults stopped when, at age 15, the girl asked to be taken to a hospital for a rape exam. That’s when she told investigators of Gunn having abused her dozens of times over the years in Orange County. The investigation discovered he had sent her sexually explicit letters and emails, with some warning her not to tell anyone else in the family about what he had done to her. Gunn is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 18 in Westminster.

Cynthia Marie Dunaway-Erickson was charged with one felony count of perjury under oath and two felony counts of accessory after the fact that could send the 50-year-old to state prison for five years, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office (OCDA). Her former live-in boyfriend, Jeffrey Scott Jones, taught for three decades at Bell High School, Gahr High School in Cerritos and Libra Academy in Huntington Park—despite his marriages to three females he began relationships with when each was an underage teen student of his. According to the March 2011 court filing by one former wife, she discovered after marrying Jones that he was already married to another former student, who was 14 when she met him. Jones, while in a position of trust, touched the 13-year-old girl’s chest and vagina under and over her clothing different times between Sept. 1, 2012, and this April 30, 2013, and he raped her two different times in May 2013, according to the case brought to the OCDA by the Huntington Beach Police Department. He was charged with two felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one felony count of continuous sexual abuse.

“While testifying under oath during the trial, Dunaway-Erickson is accused of providing a false explanation as to how Jones’ semen was found inside the victim’s cervix,” reads an OCDA arraignment statement. “Dunaway-Erickson is further accused of providing false information of jury tampering to the court in order for defendant Jones to avoid conviction.” If that happened, it did not work: A jury found Jones guilty on Oct.19, 2016, of two felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one felony count of continuous sexual abuse. The 57-year-old, who had been out of custody on bail before the verdict was read, reacted by picking up a small razor blade and slicing his throat. He was rushed to a hospital for treatment before receiving his sentence of 46 years to life and lifetime sex offender registration on March 17. The “inconsistencies” in what Dunaway-Erickson said in court and previous recorded statements to police sparked a new investigation that led to her arrest last Tuesday. While Deputy District Attorney Denise Hernandez of the Special Prosecutions Unit is prosecuting the case in court, her boss still had something to say about it. “A 13-year-old child must be protected not just from child molesters but from adults who lie to protect that child molester,” states Tony Rackauckas in the OCDA statement. “This type of crime is simply reprehensible.”

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