A 26-year-old man was convicted Friday of raping his estranged wife in a hallway outside a room where their two young sons slept in Santa Ana before punching and slicing her head.
A registered sex offender is suing the county’s pension system for allegedly denying him some benefits after he was convicted. Oh, yeah … he was once a Santa Ana city councilman and rising GOP star.
Finally, a man is being sought for coming up from behind and grabbing a boy in Ladera Ranch Wednesday.
The fellow with a dark complexion is wanted by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. That is how the person is described by the 10-year-old boy he grabbed. The fifth grader was walking to Ladera Ranch Elementary School around 8:50 a.m. Wednesday when he was pulled at from behind. The boy managed to kick the man, scream and run home to his mother, who called deputies. The child annoyance perpetrator was described as possibly African American with a thin build and tattoos on his hands. He was wearing a dark-colored jacket, pants and boots. No suspect vehicle was seen. Anyone with information is asked to contact Orange County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Hernandez at 949.206.6194 or the department commander at 714.647.7000. Anonymous tips can be left with Orange County Crime Stoppers 855.847.6227 (1-855-TIP-OCCS).
Luis Javier Cervantes was convicted of felony spousal rape, assault with intent to commit a sex offense, assault with a deadly weapon and car theft. In mid-April 2015, his wife kicked him out of their one-bedroom apartment in Santa Ana, where they were living with their two boys and her mother. After driving her mom to work around midnight on April 29, the woman was putting her sons to bed when Cervantes, who’d broken in, emerged from the bathroom with a knife in his hand. He showed his wife the butt of a gun before ordering her to take off her clothes and raping her. She tried at one point to call police, but Cervantes punched her in the head and cut her there with a blade. The pool of blood gathering around her feet freaked out Cervantes, who ran off, took her car keys on the way out of the apartment and stole her car. He was arrested the next day and now faces up to 36 years to life in prison at his scheduled March 24 sentencing.
Carlos Bustamante in December 2015 pleaded guilty to felony stalking, grand theft and attempted sexual battery after seven female subordinates at the County of Orange Public Works Department he ran accused him of making unwanted sexual advances. “Busty” would be sentenced to a year in jail, although he only did six months in a private facility. He was also given five years of formal probation and a new title for life: registered sex offender. But the former Santa Ana city councilman gave himself another title on Jan. 10: plaintiff. That’s when Bustamante filed his lawsuit against the Orange County Employees Retirement System, which he claims illegally cut part of his pension under a felony-forfeiture provision in the state’s Public Employees Pension Reform Act. The provision states that individuals can be forced to forfeit pension benefits if convicted of a felony related to their official duties, but Bustamante argues it should not apply to him because he resigned in October 2011 and the law did not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2013. The county, which last year reduced Bustamante’s monthly pension to $3,098 from $4,640, claims he owes $23,855 in overpaid benefits.
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.