Accused Kidnaper-Rapist Ordered to Stand Trial : Port Hueneme: Police officers testify that the 34-year-old man beat, molested and abducted a woman and her daughter during a rampage in July.

A Port Hueneme man was ordered Thursday to stand trial in Ventura County Superior Court on charges that he kidnaped, battered and sexually assaulted a woman and her 7-year-old daughter, and that he tried to kill the girl.

After a daylong preliminary hearing, Municipal Judge John J. Hunter found that there was sufficient evidence to try Justo Dungca, 34, on the charges. Dungca is being held in lieu of $1-million bail.

Police officers testified that Dungca beat, molested and abducted the mother and child during a July 19-20 rampage.

Dungca could face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of attempted murder and numerous counts of kidnaping and sexual assault, Deputy Dist. Atty. Vincent J. O’Neill Jr. said.

Port Hueneme Police Sgt. Dennis Fitzgerald testified for nearly seven hours Thursday at Dungca’s preliminary hearing, recounting his interviews with the alleged victims.

Proposition 115, which allows hearsay evidence, spared the mother and child from having to testify at Dungca’s preliminary hearing.

Fitzgerald testified after Hunter overruled Deputy Public Defender Neil B. Quinn’s objection that hearsay evidence violates a defendant’s constitutional right to confront his accusers.

Fitzgerald said the girl told him that Dungca, who was baby-sitting her, tied her up and raped her, then forced her to telephone her mother at work and say she felt sick.

The mother did not return home until after her daughter called four or five times, Fitzgerald said. When she entered the house, Dungca choked her and repeatedly punched her face, the officer said.

Fitzgerald testified that Dungca tied up the mother and sexually assaulted her while her daughter lay bound and gagged on the floor nearby. At one point during the two- to three-hour incident, Dungca cut the woman’s bonds, offered her husband’s folding buck knife and asked her to kill him, Fitzgerald said.

When she refused, Dungca took back the knife, the officer testified.

Dungca announced that he would take the two to Anaheim to check up on his former girlfriend, put the 7-year-old girl into a laundry bag up to her neck and tried to make her mother get into a suitcase with holes drilled into it for ventilation, Fitzgerald said.

When the woman didn’t fit, Dungca tied her hands, draped a coat over her shoulders and marched her out to sit in the passenger seat of her 1986 Toyota Camry, Fitzgerald testified.

Dungca dumped the laundry bag containing the girl into the back seat, then cut their bonds and drove to Anaheim. The mother broke free outside a gas station there and alerted police, but Dungca drove on with the child to Las Vegas, Fitzgerald said.

As police converged on Dungca at the Gaudin Ford dealership, he wrapped the girl’s hair around his hands and slammed her head against the floor, then choked her before police took him, Fitzgerald said. When they arrested Dungca, police said they found him carrying the title to the woman’s car.

Her signature had been forged, indicating that the vehicle had been transferred to him.

An uncashed IRS refund check that the woman had tried to find for several weeks was also found, Fitzgerald testified.

Dungca is scheduled to be arraigned in Superior Court on Oct. 4.