It's the nightmare of every parent with a teen daughter: she's driving the family minivan home in the wee hours of the morning when a registered sex offender follows her, causes a minor crash and, once she's out of the vehicle, sexually assaults her.
For this brazen act of scumbaggery, Rasaan Raymon Patton has been sentenced to 14 years to life plus
an additional six years in state prison and lifetime sex offender
registration.
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The unidentified 17-year-old girl was driving the family minivan home alone around 2:40 a.m. on June 21,
2008, when she was struck by another car and was forced to pull over.
When she got out to inspect the minor damage, Patton forced her back
into the passenger side, out of sight of passing traffic.
Patton obviously didn't learn his lesson from his 1999 felony rape by intoxication conviction, because he digitally
penetrated the girl by force, pulled down her panties and tried to rape her before she managed to break free.
Spooked
by the passing cars, Patton fled. The girl then drove home and at 4
p.m. that day contacted the Huntington Beach Police
Department, which launched an investigation.
Perris 31-year-old Patton was ultimately done in by a
handprint he left behind, producing a hit in
the state crime database to the previous rape out of
Riverside County. He was arrested at his home on April 13, 2009, and convicted in Orange County this past June 20 on one felony count each of
kidnapping to commit a sex offense, attempted forcible rape, sexual
penetration by foreign object by force, and sexual battery by restraint. A sentencing enhancement for having a prior felony
sex conviction for the 1999 rape was found true.
Rasaan Raymon Patton Guilty of Roadside Sex Assault That Began With Car Crash He Caused
At his sentencing, a statement was read on behalf of Patton's victim:
I am currently 21 years old.
The crimes committed happened when I was only 17 and still a minor.
Almost a fifth of my life has passed throughout the course of this
case. This incident has caused numerous flashbacks and nightmares, lack
of sleep, and negatively impacted my school performance during my
senior year of high school and even now [in college].
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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.