Man Convicted of Lesser Charge in Beating of Woman

A Ventura man who beat up a prostitute and dumped her unconscious into a canyon was convicted Monday of assault and kidnaping but not attempted murder.

Instead, Philip E. Flores was found guilty by a jury of the lesser charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter. He could be sentenced to a maximum of 11 years in prison on all of the charges, instead of the possible life sentence that goes with attempted murder.

His victim, Cynthia Zemba, 43, will spend the rest of her life in a nursing home because of the severe brain injuries that she received in the attack, investigators said.

“It was the most difficult decision that any of us have ever had to make,” jury foreman Joseph Richey said.

He and other jurors declined to comment further, but the verdicts suggest that the panel accepted most of the case presented by Charles R. Roberts Sr., a Ventura County senior deputy district attorney.

Roberts said Flores picked up Zemba, who has a record of prostitution, on Jan. 14 near Plaza Park in downtown Ventura. An argument ensued after Flores parked his van on Hall Canyon Road in the hills above the city, Roberts said. Zemba hit Flores on the lip, and he responded with several blows to her head, the prosecutor said.

Flores then drove the unconscious woman about 1,000 feet up the road--the basis for the kidnaping charge--to a spot where the canyon is deeper and more remote, Roberts said. There, he pulled Zemba out of the van and dumped her over the side.

Witnesses testified that Zemba would have died within hours but for the fact that a prospective home buyer was looking at a new house in the area. The woman noticed what appeared to be discarded clothing next to a drainpipe in the canyon. When she saw it move, she summoned help.

Flores’ attorney, Philip A. Gunnels, acknowledged that his client had struck Zemba and that he was guilty of assault. He said Flores threw Zemba’s purse into the canyon to get her to leave the van, and that she must have fallen and injured herself while trying to retrieve it.

That account was undercut, however, by the defendant’s statement to police during a four-hour interview. “OK, I did it,” he said, according to a transcript introduced at the trial. “I hit her. . . . She kind of went to one side and seemed unconscious, but she had her eyes open, and she was just like, you know, dazed.”

Later in the interview, Flores said: “I didn’t know where to go . . . I figured if I cruised the streets, somebody was going to see her . . . so I just went up a little farther and then I just pulled her right out.”

In his final argument to the jury, Roberts said the comments and other evidence proved the malice necessary for an attempted-murder conviction. But after asking for a definition of malice, the jury decided on the verdict of attempted voluntary manslaughter. The law defines voluntary manslaughter as a killing that occurs in the heat of passion.

Flores, who has been in custody since his arrest in January, dropped his head to the defense table and started to cry when the guilty verdicts were read. His mother, who sat in the first row of the courtroom throughout the six-day trial, also fought back tears. As her son was led back to a holding cell, she whispered, “I love you, Phil.”

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Steven Z. Perren scheduled sentencing for Sept. 17.

Zemba’s injuries prevented her from testifying at the trial. She suffered what is known as a sub-dural hematoma, or bleeding between the outer and middle layers of the brain. Typically in such cases, the trapped blood forms a large clot within the skull and puts pressure on brain tissue, causing confusion and other symptoms.

Roberts tried to introduce a videotape of interviews with Zemba as evidence of her injuries, but Perren ruled that the tape was too prejudicial for the jury to see.

Part of the tape made last month shows the rail-thin, dark-haired Zemba at a nursing home, slurring her words as she struggled to answer investigators’ questions. Asked what month it was, she said January; asked to name the year, she said 1999. She recalled being married twice, but couldn’t think of her ex-husbands’ names.

“Why don’t I remember them? I’m sorry,” she said, sobbing. “You ask me all these questions, and I can’t answer them. Why can’t I remember?”

She said she didn’t recall what happened to her seven months ago, but she did remember that men have mistreated her.

“Men have hit me,” she said. “Men have hurt me.”