Rapist Sentenced to 75-Year Term : Courts: Johnny Duane Miles is also a suspect in a series of sexual assaults and robberies in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

A Compton man who authorities believe committed a series of rapes and a murder in the Inland Empire has been sentenced to more than 75 years in state prison for the rape and robbery of two Torrance office workers last year.

Johnny Duane Miles, dubbed the Red Dragon rapist for the inscription on the cap he allegedly wore in the Inland Empire incidents, received the maximum sentence of 75 years, 8 months, from Torrance Superior Court Judge Francis J. Hourigan. The judge had received a letter from one of the Torrance victims begging that Miles be put away forever.

Miles, 26, now will stand trial in San Bernardino County for the rape and murder last year of Nancy Willem, 35, who was a Rialto rape counselor. He is also charged with three other rapes and numerous robberies, all occurring between January and March, 1992, said Brian Seunders, a San Bernardino deputy district attorney.

Prosecutors may seek the death penalty, Seunders said. Miles also is a suspect in a number of rapes in Riverside County, although no charges have been filed in those cases, authorities said.

A Torrance jury on April 29 found Miles guilty of raping a pregnant Torrance woman at gunpoint and forcing her to perform oral sex on a male co-worker. Both were also robbed, and Miles threatened to kill them if they called police.

When the jury returned its verdict, Miles raged at the panel and at the judge. But on Friday during the sentencing, surrounded by three sheriff’s deputies and standing in a wood and glass booth, he stood stoically as Hourigan handed down his sentence.

“He is a serious danger to society,” Hourigan said in rejecting Deputy Public Defender Michael Clark’s request that Miles receive a sentence of 35 years since he did not attempt to kill his victims and did not physically harm them beyond the rape.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Julie Sulman, however, urged the maximum sentence, calling Miles a “pathological, perverted” criminal with a history of offenses. Miles previously had been convicted of robberies, and was on probation at the time he attacked the Torrance workers.

A pre-sentencing report listed Miles’ primary source of income as his mother and secondary sources as “illegal activities.”

The woman who was raped also wrote a letter to the judge in which she said, “I beg you please keep him away from me and my loved ones forever.” The woman also said Miles appears in her nightmares. In a pre-sentencing report, she said she was unable to return to work and continues to receive counseling.

The male victim said in the pre-sentencing report that, “We survived and I’m glad of that,” but he urged that Miles “be kept off the streets forever so as to never injure anyone again.”

Outside of court, Clark expressed disappointment with the sentence and said Miles intends to appeal the verdict on grounds that the evidence in the case was insufficient to convict him.

Prosecutors said that in the afternoon of June 16, 1992, Miles, wearing a red bandanna over his face, entered an office at Torrance and Hawthorne boulevards where he found the two victims preparing to leave.

He pointed a gun at the victims and robbed them of approximately $40, prosecutors said.

After searching the office, Miles tied up the man with telephone and computer cords and ordered the woman to orally copulate her co-worker, authorities said.

Miles then raped the woman, who begged him not to because she was two months pregnant. She went on to deliver a healthy child.

After leaving the office, the victims called police, who found someone fitting Miles’ description waiting for a red light at Torrance Boulevard and Sartori Street, authorities said.

A chase ensued to Torrance Boulevard and Figueroa Street in Carson where Miles flashed a weapon, prompting the officers to shoot him in the hips and foot. He was then arrested.

Police said they found two $20 bills, that had been taken from the male victim, in Miles’ pants pocket and a red bandanna in Miles’ pickup truck.