| For Immediate Release Case # 09ZF0047
November 6, 2009 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Public Affairs Counsel Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami |
TWO COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYERS AND HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND SENTENCED TO SIX YEARS IN PRISON FOR RAPING AND SEXUALLY ASSAULTING UNCONSCIOUS WOMAN ON VIDEOTAPE
SANTA ANA – Two Santa Ana City College football players and their friend from high school were sentenced today to six years in state prison for raping and sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman while she was incapacitated due to intoxication. Luster Mitchell Lewis, 21, Irvine, pleaded guilty today, and John Paul Foster II, 23, Seaside, Monterey County, and Michael Alexander Clemmons, 20, Tustin, pleaded guilty Sept. 24, 2009, to four felony counts of rape of a person unable to resist due to an intoxicating substance, one felony count of sexual penetration by foreign object of a person unable to resist due to an intoxicating substance, and three felony counts of oral copulation of a person unable to resist due to an intoxicating substance.
The three defendants became friends while attending Tustin High School. Foster moved to Monterey County after high school and occasionally visited friends in Orange County. Clemmons and Lewis played football for Santa Ana City College at the time of their arrest.
In July 2008, Clemmons, Foster, and Lewis were partying at the Key Inn at 1611 El Camino Real in Tustin. While she was highly intoxicated, Jane Doe was dropped off by a mutual friend who trusted the defendants to take care of her. She later passed out. Clemmons, Foster, and Lewis knew that Jane Doe was unconscious, incapacitated, and unable to resist due to intoxication. Foster used a video camera to tape the duration of the sexual assault.
Lewis removed the victim’s clothes and moved her from the bed to the floor and he and Clemmons repeatedly raped, orally copulated, and digitally penetrated Jane Doe. One defendant ejaculated on the victim’s face. Foster sexually assaulted the victim on tape while holding the video camera by rubbing his penis against her face. Foster then handed the video camera to another defendant and urinated on Jane Doe.
Throughout the sexual assault, the non-responsive Jane Doe was unconscious and unable to resist because she was under the influence of an intoxicating substance. Clemmons and Lewis slapped her in the face, told her to wake up, and held the victim’s nose closed to suffocate her in order to wake her up. Jane Doe did not wake up on the video.
On Dec. 28, 2008, the graphic 21-minute tape was discovered by a third party, who turned over the evidence to Tustin Police. The Tustin Police Department conducted further investigation, including locating Jane Doe. Jane Doe was unaware of the graphic sexual assault perpetrated against her due to her intoxication.
During the sentencing today, the victim’s mother gave an impact statement to the court explaining that the “sadistic” acts of the defendants have permanently impacted her daughter.