East County

A Pine Valley man who admitted raping a stranded motorist in East County was found guilty Monday of 15 felony charges.

Randall Turpin, 41, who waived his right to a jury trial last week, was convicted of most of the charges against him by San Diego Superior Court Judge Norbert Ehrenfreund.

“I’m probably going to (seek a sentence of) 130 years,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Genaro Ramirez said. That is the maximum sentence allowable.

The attack occurred Nov. 15, 1989, when a 28-year-old woman from the Los Angeles area had car problems and was stranded off Interstate 8 and the East Willow Road exit in Alpine.

The woman, who speaks little English and had her testimony translated by a Spanish-speaking interpreter, identified Turpin as the man who stopped nearby and pretended to help her.

The 95-pound woman told how the 6-foot-2 Turpin handcuffed her, kidnaped her, engaged in a variety of sexual acts with her against her will and stole $500 before he released her hours later at the Buckman Springs rest area.

The victim wrote down her attacker’s license number, and Turpin was arrested the same day.

Turpin was found guilty of five counts of forcible oral copulation, five counts of rape with a foreign object, two forcible rape counts, kidnaping, sexual battery and robbery, all while armed.

Ehrenfreund also found that the victim suffered great bodily injuries in the attack because she was a virgin at the time. This finding can add several years to the sentence. Turpin has a felony conviction for committing a lewd act upon a child, which can also add five years to the sentence.