Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Man Found Guilty of ’92 Crime Spree

A former Quartz Hill High School student who led several juveniles on a 1992 crime spree in the Antelope Valley was convicted Monday of 10 felony counts stemming from a series of robberies, a kidnaping and other offenses, the prosecutor said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Portillo said Rayvon Williamson, 19, faces a maximum sentence at his scheduled July 12 sentencing of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Portillo said Williamson probably will serve 15 to 20 years before becoming eligible for parole.

A Lancaster Superior Court jury, after deliberating several days, found Williamson guilty on all 10 counts it considered. The original complaint against Williamson included 24 counts, but 14 were dismissed, including one of conspiring to murder a sheriff’s deputy.

Williamson, a reputed gang member who had been living in Palmdale, was 17 at the time of the crime spree from Jan. 24 to Feb. 29.

“The coldness and boldness of a 17-year-old kid doing these things is very striking. It’s a pathetic case,” Portillo said.

Williamson was accused of robbing a woman at a Lancaster video store on Jan. 24, kidnaping and robbing a woman at the Antelope Valley Mall in Palmdale on Feb. 14, trying another kidnaping the next day in Palmdale, and conspiring to rob and murder the employees of a Palmdale gun store.

Authorities decided to prosecute Williamson as an adult because of the seriousness of the crimes. Two of his accomplices, ages 14 and 15 at the time of the offenses, previously were sentenced to the California Youth Authority for their roles in the case, Portillo said.

In the late 1980s, Portillo said Williamson also was sentenced to the youth authority for attempted murder in a shooting that left a Los Angeles security guard paralyzed. But Williamson was paroled about three months before the start of the Antelope Valley crime spree.