Could Get 100 Years : Man Is Guilty on 17 Counts in Gang Rape

A 21-year-old Santa Ana man who returned to the scene after participating in a gang rape of an 18-year-old woman to ask her if she was all right was convicted in Orange County Superior Court Tuesday of 17 sexual assault counts.

Christopher Thomas, who lived near El Salvador Park, where the Anaheim woman was repeatedly raped and sodomized by four men on Sept. 16, 1983, showed no expression as the court clerk read the thick stack of jury verdicts.

One Santa Ana man, Charles Hernandez, was convicted last summer in the rape and sentenced to 117 years in prison. A second Santa Ana man, Leonard Galarza, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years. A fourth man, known only as “Pepe,” is still at large.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoff Robinson said the fourth man was the leader in the assault, burning the woman nearly a dozen times with a cigarette and cutting her with a knife when she feigned unconsciousness to try to curtail the assault.

The woman testified that Hernandez, Galarza and “Pepe” approached her when she had a flat tire and talked her into parking her car in a lot near the park. They then dragged her to a secluded area of the park and raped her, she said. She said Thomas appeared to be a friend of theirs and joined them after she had already been abducted.

Superior Court Judge John Ryan set a June 14 sentencing date for Thomas. Thomas could receive a maximum of about 100 years, but Robinson said he may recommend no more than 30 years because Thomas’ degree of culpability in the gang rape appeared to be about the same as Galarza’s.