Opening statement are scheduled to begin this morning in the trial of Alfredo
Fraga, who is accused of dragging a 58-year-old woman into bushes near a Santa Ana park walking trail and sexually assaulting her.
The 23-year-old Orange resident faces a maximum sentence of 30 years to life in state prison if convicted.
]
The woman was walking on a trail in Esplanade Park in an unincorporated area
of Santa Ana around 2 p.m. on May 25, 2009, when she was grabbed by the waist and dragged into bushes nearby. Her attacker put his hands down her pants and fingered her as she screamed and struggled unsuccessfully to get
away.
A bystander and an off-duty Orange County sheriff's deputy driving by stopped and rushed over to help
the woman and the attacker tried to flee. The deputy and others in the park chased and detained a man later identified as Fraga.
Today he faces two felony counts of sexual penetration by foreign object by force, a sentencing enhancement allegation for kidnapping in the commission of a sexual offense and the legal wits of Deputy District Attorney Keith Burke of the Sexual Assault Unit.
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.