| For Immediate Release Case # 10CF3221 March 12, 2012 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Chief of Staff Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami |
MAN CONVICTED OF RAPING INTOXICATED WOMAN AND DUMPING HER BODY IN ALLEY OUTSIDE BAR
WESTMINSTER – A man was convicted Friday of raping an intoxicated woman in the back of a car and dumping her in an alley behind a bar. Akeem Jelani Johnson, 28, Tustin, was found guilty by a jury March 9, 2012, of one felony count of rape of an intoxicated woman and faces a maximum sentence of eight years in state prison and mandatory lifetime sex offender registration at his sentencing April 20, 2012, at 1:30 p.m. in Department W-9, West Justice Center, Westminster.
Sometime between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. on Nov. 25, 2010, Johnson talked with 47-year-old Jane Doe, whom he met for the first time that night at Godfather’s bar in Tustin. The victim was in Orange County from Australia visiting family and was visibly intoxicated, including displaying unsteady balance and difficulty walking without assistance.
At midnight on Nov. 26, 2010, Johnson took the unsteady victim outside to his parked sport utility vehicle (SUV) and they got into the back seat. He raped her in his car while she was unable to resist due to intoxication.
After the rape, Johnson got out of the vehicle. The defendant and two of his friends lifted partially-clothed Jane Doe from the car by holding her arms and feet in the air and carried her into the alley on the side of the bar. They dumped her body on an old, dirty mattress and fled the scene. A witness who observed the victim being carried called 911 and provided the license plate number from the defendant’s SUV.
Officers from the Tustin Police Department responded to the scene and located Jane Doe in the alley on the mattress. She was unresponsive, incoherent, and unable to stand without assistance due to alcohol intoxication.
Johnson was arrested later that day based on the license plate number provided by the witness.
This morning the victim gave an impact statement to the court, saying in part, “My confident nature has taken a beating. I become anxious around male strangers. I have trouble functioning without fear and anxiety in unfamiliar surroundings and become nervous of anyone coming too close to my personal space… This whole ordeal has changed me for life. I will never be the same person I was before Thanksgiving 2010… Fortunately for me that night, something sent a Good Samaritan outside from doing his laundry, and he had a conscience that told him what he was witnessing was not right and he should do something about it.”
Johnson’s lifetime registration as a sex offender will bar him from entering County recreational areas and City parks which have passed the Sex Offender Ordinance. Visit www.orangecountyda.com to read the prior press releases on the County’s Sex Offender Ordinance as well as the ten other cities that have enacted the Child Safety Zone Ordinance.