Sex offender gets life sentence for Pasadena kidnappings that ended in dramatic escapes

A 41-year-old sex offender was sentenced to life in prison Monday after he was found guilty of kidnapping and attempting to sexually assault two women he trapped in his pickup truck in Pasadena in 2016, prosecutors said.

Anthony Seth McDaniel offered the two 18-year-old women a ride, trapped the pair in his truck and tried to sexually assault them before each staged a dramatic freeway escape as he drove from Pasadena toward his Compton home, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

McDaniel was convicted in October of two felony counts of kidnapping to commit oral copulation. He will have to serve 28 years in prison before he is eligible for parole, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Fernanda Barreto.

McDaniel was on parole after being convicted in 2008 of assault with intent to commit rape and was wearing a GPS monitor when the April 30, 2016, kidnappings occurred.

That Saturday, around 10 p.m., he persuaded the teenagers, who were waiting at a bus stop at Fair Oaks Avenue and Montana Street in Pasadena, to get into his pickup, police said at the time.

One of the women jumped out of McDaniel’s truck as he drove on the 210 Freeway on-ramp at Mountain Street, fracturing her ankle in the process, authorities said. A passerby saw her fall from the truck and called 911.

The second woman managed to cause a collision on the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles and escaped from McDaniel’s truck after the crash. Prosecutors think McDaniel was taking the women to his home in Compton.

A California Highway Patrol officer saw the second woman on the 110 Freeway near Olympic Boulevard and initially thought she had been involved in a hit-and-run collision before learning of the attempted kidnapping, police said at the time.

McDaniel was later taken into custody by U.S. marshals at his Carson workplace.

javier.panzar@latimes.com

@jpanzar