Newport Woman Raped at Knifepoint; Suspect Held

A 19-year-old Newport Beach woman was forced into sex acts and raped twice in her Newport Beach apartment by a knife-wielding man who made the victim’s boyfriend watch, police said Tuesday.

The suspect, who lives in the same Oakwood Apartments complex, allegedly held the couple hostage for about four hours, intermittently threatening to cut their throats and then apologizing, police said.

During the first hour, unknowing Newport Beach police officers interviewed a 21-year-old woman in the next building whom the man earlier allegedly threatened with sexual assault, also at knifepoint, Officer Tom Little said.

“The police were right next door part of the time,” Little said, “but they just didn’t know . . . .”

Lawrence Peter Medici, 31, an unemployed construction worker, was arrested at an apartment building near the couple’s about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Little said that Medici, who surrendered to officers approaching him outside his apartment, was booked into the City Jail on suspicion of rape, kidnaping (holding the couple hostage) and the attempted rape of the woman in the other building. Bail was set at $50,000.

Police said none of the victims required hospitalization.

According to Little, the first of the two incidents began about 9 p.m. Monday in the 500-apartment complex at 800 Irvine Ave.

A man knocked at the apartment occupied by two 21-year-old women, stating that he had stopped by to say hello. The women invited him in, Little said.

Twenty minutes later, one of the women left the living room to use the bedroom phone, leaving the other alone with the man.

As the woman played with her kittens in the living room, Little said, the man walked to the kitchen and picked up a knife with a three-inch blade. He ordered the woman into the bedroom, and when she refused, he told her to take off her clothes, Little said.

The woman was able to put off the assailant for the next 15 minutes by distracting him with conversation, police said. After he set the knife down and sat at the kitchen table, she fled the apartment unharmed. The man followed her into the hallway and shouted that he was “just kidding” before she entered a neighbor’s apartment to phone police, Little said, reading from the victim’s statement to police. The other woman witnessed some of the threats to her roommate, but was not harmed either, police said.

‘Need Place to Hide’

Fifteen minutes after he left the first apartment, the man knocked on the door of another, telling the young couple that they owed his brother $50 and he was collecting for it, according to the police report. Little said the assailant held a knife in his right hand and told the couple, “I need a place to hide out until the heat is off. I just killed one security guard and wounded another . . . .” (Police said they don’t believe a security guard was wounded or killed.)

Still standing at their doorway, the man told the couple, “If you don’t do what I say, I’ll cut both of you, I’ll kill you. I’ll cut your throats . . .,” Little said, reading from the victims’ statement.

Once inside the apartment, the man ordered the woman and her 20-year-old boyfriend to the bathroom, where for the next hour he threatened to injure them, Little said.

“At that point, in front of the boyfriend, he engaged in a sexual act with the female and then had the female engage in a sexual act with him,” Little said. “He had the knife against the female’s head and continued to threaten both if they did not cooperate.”

The woman was then raped.

Later, the three sat in the living room, about two feet apart, as the man’s mood changed from very apologetic to very angry and upset --at which time “he’d threaten the couple with death,” Little said.

With the boyfriend still in the same room, the man forced the woman into performing another sex act with him, raped her again, then “became depressed,” Little said.

Ran Out Front Door

The man handed the boyfriend the knife and told him, “Why don’t you just stab and kill me?” Little said. Then he ran out the front door.

The couple ran out the back door and called police from a neighboring apartment. They told officers they had seen the man in the complex before Monday night and directed them to an apartment where he might be, Little said. Officers were on their way there, police said, when Medici, his arms over his head, walked out of a doorway and yelled, “Here I am!”