See the update at the end of this post on the charges against Michael Hernandez.
ORIGINAL POST, DEC. 6, 6:30 A.M.: I'm on the fence as to whether this mugshot warrants a resurrection of Ugly Police Mugshot of the Week, but doughy-faced construction worker Michael Curtis Hernandez's alleged crime is ugly enough on its own.
The 37-year-old is accused of grabbing a woman he did not know, dragging her into her Tustin apartment as her cries for help went unanswered, pushing her into a bedroom and committing “several sexual assault violations,” according to police.
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This happened Sunday, as cops discovered when the victim fled her apartment and called dispatchers, according to Tustin Police Lt. John Strain.
Detectives investigated people known to be associated with the area of the apartment, and on Wednesday arrested Hernandez without incident, although he refused to speak with detectives about the crime.
He has an extensive history of prior arrests and convictions for such crimes as kidnapping, child annoyance and false imprisonment, according to Strain, who noted Hernandez was being held in Orange County Jail on $1 million bail for the new rape and kidnapping raps as well as other felonies.
Anyone with information about this crime or believes they have been victimized by Hernandez is asked to call Tustin Police Detective Natalie Nguyen at 714.573.3253.
UPDATE, DEC. 6, 2:34 P.M.: Hernandez was scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon on one count of kidnapping to commit rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of rape, a count of forced sodomy, a count of sexual penetration with a foreign object and a count of false imprisonment by violence, all felonies, according to court records.
Hernandez, still being held in Orange County Jail on $1 million bail, pleaded guilty in January 2009 to false imprisonment effected by violence, menace, fraud or deceit and aggravated trespass, both misdemeanors, according to court records. A felony assault
charge was dismissed.
He was sentenced to 307 days in jail and put on three years of formal probation, reports City News Service.
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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.