Inmate Convicted in S.D. Dies of Beating

An Ohio man, imprisoned for attacking a woman last year in San Diego’s Balboa Park, died after he was severely beaten by a fellow inmate, the Riverside County coroner’s office reported Wednesday.

Ronald Fast, 30, of Lakemore, Ohio, had been in custody at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco for five months, said Capt. Arnold St. Peter, a spokesman for the medium-security state prison. Fast was serving a six-year sentence for assault with intent to commit rape.

A corrections officer found Fast lying in his bed Saturday, with bruises covering his face and chest, and head and neck injuries, St. Peter said.

He was taken to Riverside General Hospital, where he died Tuesday of the head injuries, said Mickey Worthington, deputy coroner.

Prison officials believe another inmate was responsible for the fatal beating, but they have yet to discover his motive, St. Peter said. The suspect has been transfered to the California Institution for Men at Chino, a higher-security state prison.

That suspect, whose name is being withheld until an investigation is completed and charges are filed, is serving a six-year sentence for four burglaries in San Luis Obispo County, St. Peter said.

Fast pleaded guilty in November to assault with intent to commit rape in a July 30, 1984, attack in Balboa Park, said Steve Casey, special assistant to the San Diego County district attorney.

Fast and another man, Allan Patrick Lattin, approached their victim near midday in Balboa Park and asked her for cigarettes, the woman told investigators. The next thing the woman knew, she said, she was being dragged about two blocks through bushes into a secluded ravine.

There, the two men removed her clothing and, over a three-to-four-hour period, attacked her sexually, a district attorney’s report said. Fast also punched the woman, pulled her hair and choked her with a belt, the report said.

The victim persuaded the pair to take her to a San Diego hotel, were she was able to hide in a bathroom and summon help, the report said. Blood samples taken that evening showed Fast’s blood-alcohol level at .17%, Lattin’s at .14% and the victim’s at .12%.

Fast sought probation after he pleaded guilty, saying drinking had been a problem all his life, but he was sentenced to six years in state prison. Lattin was sentenced to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexual battery, Casey said.