PORT HUENEME : Transient Guilty of Beating Woman, 84

A judge has found a 34-year-old transient guilty of attempted murder in the brutal beating of an 84-year-old grandmother from Port Hueneme.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch also found John Paul Duggan guilty of assault, burglary, auto theft and attempted rape, defense attorney William C. Maxwell said Saturday.

Storch, who heard the case without a jury, did not find Duggan guilty of aggravated mayhem, a charge that would have resulted in at least seven more years in prison, Maxwell said. Duggan is scheduled to be sentenced April 17.

Maxwell had argued that it was not Duggan but the victim’s 27-year-old grandson who attacked the woman Oct. 24. The grandson, Alan Busher, had invited Duggan to stay at the home temporarily.

In opening remarks, Maxwell said the two men had been on a three-day cocaine binge before the assault. The evidence suggested that Busher assaulted his own grandmother because he could not get money to purchase more cocaine, Maxwell said.

Busher testified that, on the morning of the attack, he was awakened by loud noises and found Duggan lying naked on top of Busher’s blood-covered grandmother.

After a brief struggle with Busher, Duggan dived head-first through a window and escaped to another house about a block away, where he stole clothes, credit cards and a car. Los Angeles police officers arrested Duggan three weeks later in Venice after finding the car abandoned.