5 Sexual Assault Victims Testify in Trial of Mission Hills Man

Clutching a white teddy bear to her chest, a 19-year-old woman testified Tuesday that as she entered a Granada Hills apartment complex she was attacked by two men, one of whom raped her.

During the first day of a preliminary hearing in San Fernando Municipal Court, the woman tearfully identified Lawrence Anthony Esparza, of Mission Hills, as the man who raped her on the evening of Feb. 26.

Esparza, an 18-year-old service station attendant, is charged with sexually assaulting nine women in the San Fernando Valley, including a mail carrier and a policeman’s girlfriend.

The woman testified that her other assailant helped drag her to an alley and restrained her during the rape. The second man has not been identified, police said.

Esparza acted alone during the other eight attacks, which occurred between July 22, 1987, and Feb. 29, said Detective Richard Ward of the Los Angeles Police Department. The victims, between the ages of 17 and 29, were threatened with a knife or a gun, Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Davis-Springer said.

Five victims testified Tuesday before Judge Malcolm H. Mackey that Esparza had sexually assaulted them.

Three of them testified that they were sexually assaulted in a parking lot during early-morning hours. One cocktail waitress, 21, was raped Jan. 25; another cocktail waitress, 29, was raped Feb. 28; and a cosmetology student, 22, was the victim of a Feb. 26 attempted rape, authorities said.

Another victim, a 28-year-old letter carrier, testified that she was attacked July 22 about 11:15 a.m. as she was delivering mail in the 15000 block of Devonshire Boulevard in Chatsworth. The man held a knife to her throat and forced her onto the porch of a home, where he raped her, she testified.

Esparza was arrested Feb. 29 when a rape victim called police shortly before a man broke into her room. Esparza was arrested after fleeing the apartment, Ward said. A police officer’s hand was broken during the attempt to arrest Esparza, he said.

Esparza is charged with seven counts of rape, four counts of residential burglary, three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of attempted sodomy, three counts of assault with intent to commit rape, two counts of kidnaping and one count each of sodomy, battery on a peace officer, false imprisonment, rape by a foreign object, forcible oral copulation and attempted kidnaping.

He is being held in lieu of $600,000 bail in County Jail. His preliminary hearing is to resume today.