Former Officer Guilty in Rape of Simi Valley Newlywed

A former Oxnard police officer was convicted Thursday of raping a 20-year-old Simi Valley newlywed on the kitchen floor of her father’s home.

A Ventura County Superior Court jury also found Kenneth Michael Myers, 30, of Newbury Park guilty of burglary in the April 23 incident.

Myers, who was off duty at the time of the assault, testified during his two-week trial that the front door of the house in the 1600 block of Cayton Avenue was open and that he followed the woman inside. He said he was looking for a friend’s home and thought the woman might be able to give him directions.

When the woman saw him, she began to scream and “I lunged at her with my hand over her mouth,” Myers said. “I was trying to keep myself from getting kicked and scratched or punched.”

Says Police Stopped Him

Myers testified that he removed some of the woman’s clothing, but did not rape her. He might have raped the woman, he said, but was stopped by police, who were called to the house by the victim’s father.

“If the police officer had not walked in seconds later, it could have happened,” Myers said. He told the jury that he could not explain his actions.

“It was like I was thinking about doing things after I did them,” he said.

The victim, however, testified that Myers did rape her.

The woman, who had just returned from her honeymoon, was picking up some of her belongings at her father’s house when the attack occurred.

Superior Court Judge Marvin H. Lewis set sentencing for Nov. 13. Myers, who is free on $20,000 bail, faces a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison. Myers was suspended without pay in April as a police officer.