15-Year Term Given in Molestation of Patients

Aformer maintenance worker at a Sylmar nursing home for the handicapped was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in state prison for molesting two victims of cerebral palsy.

Tony Ray Lopez, 49, stared straight ahead and kept his hands folded on top of a religious book as San Fernando Superior Court Judge John H. Major announced the sentence.

After a non-jury trial last month, Major convicted Lopez of one count each of sodomy, sexual battery and sexual penetration by a foreign object.

One victim, a 26-year-old resident of the Spastic Children’s Foundation, testified during the trial that Lopez forced him to perform sex acts in a washroom at the Sylmar home last year.

The other victim, a 25-year-old man confined to a wheelchair, said he met Lopez while living at the facility but was not assaulted until after he hired Lopez to care for him at a Sylmar group home for cerebral palsy victims last year.

According to a probation report, Lopez denied harming the men and said he believed the victims were “coached” into making allegations against him.

A witness testifying in Lopez’s defense during the trial said she was with Lopez at the time one of the assaults was alleged to have taken place.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Davis-Springer said after the sentencing that the victim of that assault has trouble organizing a sequence of events and may have been confused about exactly when the molestation took place.