Long Beach Man Pleads Guilty to Rape and Kidnap

A Long Beach man has pleaded guilty to the June, 1989, rape and abduction of a Torrance woman who was kidnaped after an early morning accident in which her car was rear-ended.

In a plea bargain, Larry Earl Climmons, 29, pleaded guilty Tuesday to 15 felonies, including kidnaping and rape, but avoided the possibility of a life sentence without parole. The deal was struck as a jury was about to be selected in Torrance Superior Court for the trial.

Sentencing is set for May 29 before Superior Court Judge Jean Matusinka.

Still awaiting trial in connection with the incident is Jerome Young, 27, also of Long Beach, who was driving the car that struck the victim’s car. Young’s trial is set for May 15.

In his guilty plea, Climmons avoided the possibility of an automatic life sentence without possibility of parole when the prosecutor agreed to drop a charge of kidnaping for extortion.

He pleaded guilty to 15 lesser crimes, including kidnaping for robbery, rape, rape with a foreign object and rape in concert. Kidnaping for robbery has an automatic sentence of life with possible parole, and maximum sentences on the other crimes are eight and nine years.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Julie Sulman said the plea bargain also included an agreement that Climmons would be sentenced only on the kidnaping and on a single rape charge.

His lawyer, Douglas McCann, said he expected his client to serve about nine years in prison.

Young is charged with the same felonies as Climmons and with being a felon in possession of a firearm. The count stems from Young’s conviction for a 1987 residential burglary.

Sulman said the incident began about 2 a.m. on June 1, 1989, when a Torrance woman driving home from a friend’s house was rear-ended near Arlington Avenue and Del Amo Boulevard.

After she got out of her car to exchange insurance information with the driver, she was grabbed from behind by another man, forced into the other car and hit on the head with a gun, the prosecutor said.

The woman was molested and raped by Climmons as the car was driven to Compton, Sulman said, and then the two men switched places. In addition to the assaults, Sulman said, the woman was forced to withdraw about $120 from an automatic teller machine after the men discovered her card in her purse.

The two men abandoned her and the car, which was stolen, and the woman drove back to Torrance, where she contacted authorities.

Climmons and Young, who live in the same apartment building in Long Beach, were arrested after a police stakeout several weeks after the incident. Police had found a fingerprint in the car that matched one of Climmons’ and the woman identified Climmons from a photograph.