Kidnaping-Rapes of 3 Bring 157-Year Term

A Van Nuys man described by a probation officer as “evil incarnate” was sentenced Wednesday to 157 years and four months in state prison for kidnaping and repeatedly raping three Sepulveda women.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge Pro Tem Irwin Garfinkel ordered Inocencio Jesus Solares, 26, to begin serving the term after he finishes serving 27 years to life for a murder he committed two months after the rapes.

Solares, an illegal alien from Guatemala, was convicted April 12 of nine counts of rape, three counts of kidnaping, five counts of sodomy, six counts of oral copulation and three counts of robbery for the Feb. 12, 1983, attack on the three women.

His accomplice, Victor Reyes, a cousin of two of the victims, is serving a 14-year state prison term for three of the rapes and for helping Solares.

Solares and Reyes kidnaped the victims from a Sepulveda bus stop after Reyes convinced them that Solares was a friend who would give them a ride to a party.

Instead, Solares drove the victims to a remote area in the Antelope Valley, where he and Reyes raped and tortured them for several hours.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Speer, who prosecuted the case, said Solares could have been sentenced to 200 years in prison.

“In the 26 years I have worked in trial courts, I have never listened to a case more heinous, more repugnant, and more repelling to the human spirit,” Garfinkel said, noting that only “confusion” in sentencing laws prevented him from giving Solares the maximum term.

“I have not diminished this sentence out of any degree of compassion, leniency, or sympathy for this defendant,” he said. “Mr. Solares is such a danger to society that it would be foolhardy ever to release him.”

Defense attorney Dennis E. Mulcahey said he would file an appeal for a new trial Wednesday afternoon.