Trial Ordered After Rape Victims Hear Accused’s Voice

A 25-year-old Sepulveda man was ordered Thursday to stand trial in a series of San Fernando Valley rapes in which most of the victims were able to identify him only by his voice.

During a four-day preliminary hearing in Van Nuys Municipal Court, the defendant, Paul Avery Moran, was ordered by a judge to utter several sentences that the women recalled from the attacks, including, “I’ll kill you.”

Six victims testified that they were unable to see their assailant because they were blindfolded, but they described the man’s voice as distinctive. After Judge Judith Meisels Ashmann ordered Moran to speak, the women testified that his voice matched that of their attacker.

Several of them had previously identified Moran during a police “voice lineup” in which six men were asked to speak.

3 Counts Dismissed

That testimony, combined with physical identifications of Moran from four other rape victims and two burglary victims who said they saw their attacker’s face, was enough to hold the defendant for trial on 27 felony charges, Ashmann ruled. The judge dismissed three other counts, saying the prosecution had presented insufficient evidence.

If convicted of all 27 charges, Moran could face more than 200 years in prison, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda B. Greenberg.

Greenberg said in an interview that the modus operandi was nearly identical in most of the crimes. Without that common thread and the physical identifications, she said, the charges relying solely on the suspect’s voice would be very difficult to prosecute.

Most of the victims testified that their assailant bound their hands with clothing from their homes and covered their faces before threatening them with a knife and raping them. The crimes occurred in the mornings from May, 1984, to December, 1985, in Van Nuys and the northwest Valley, police said.

Probably Acted Alone

The assailant often intimated to the women that he had an accomplice in the house who was unable to speak, but detectives have concluded that the man probably acted alone and only pretended to have a partner.

In most of the attacks, the man searched the house for some type of oil, which he used during the rapes, the women testified.

The victims told police that their assailant sounded like a black man with excellent diction who spoke with refinement and no trace of street slang.

Robert C. Swanson, the defense attorney, argued for a dismissal of the charges that relied on voice identification, calling the procedure “extremely unreliable” and “inherently frail.”

Ashmann rejected that argument, however, saying that the state Supreme Court has upheld the practice.

Los Angeles Police Officer Lynn Peacock testified Thursday that Moran was placed under part-time surveillance on Dec. 20, 1985, after he became a suspect.

Followed to Apartment

On that day, Peacock said, officers followed Moran to an apartment complex on Roscoe Boulevard in Reseda. Moran reached for the doorknob of one apartment but then left, Peacock said.

Six days later, a 17-year-old in that same apartment was raped. During the preliminary hearing, she identified Moran as her attacker.

Los Angeles Police Detective George Salazar said a manpower shortage during the Christmas holidays prevented police from providing round-the-clock surveillance of the suspect.

Moran, who worked as a fire-extinguisher serviceman, is being held in Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned June 5 in Van Nuys Superior Court.