Local News in Brief : Ex-Convict Sought in Rape in Limousine
The Ventura County district attorney’s office has issued an arrest warrant for an ex-convict who has been charged with kidnaping and raping a Thousand Oaks woman in the back of a rented limousine as it drove along the Ventura Freeway, authorities said Wednesday.
Thomas E. Cota, 25, a transient, is suspected of sexually assaulting the 18-year-old woman June 13, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth said.
Although the driver of the limousine, Rudy Macias, heard a commotion in the back of the car as he drove from Oxnard toward Los Angeles, Cota told him several times to keep going, Henke-Dobroth said.
As the car slowed after leaving the freeway at Las Virgenes Road, the woman got out of the car and got into the front seat, Henke-Dobroth said. Macias drove to a friend’s house nearby, but Cota had fled, Henke-Dobroth said.
“We don’t know at which point the suspect got out of the car,” she said.
Cota has been imprisoned in California for passing bad checks and has served time in Nevada for embezzlement, Henke-Dobroth said.
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