Transient Found Guilty in Rape, Torture Case : Crime: James Hernandez, 30, faces two life sentences. He is accused of applying electrical shocks to the victim during the five-hour attack in North Hollywood.

In a verdict that means two life sentences, a transient was convicted Monday of 15 felony charges for luring a woman to a North Hollywood warehouse where she was tortured with electric shocks and sexually assaulted.

A Van Nuys Superior Court jury convicted James Hernandez, 30, in the March 27 incident that left the victim with permanent neurological damage resulting from an electronic device that was connected to her breasts.

As the verdicts were being read, the 25-year-old victim sat in the front row of the spectator gallery and shook her head in agreement. Apparently overcome with emotion, she later declined to comment on the case.

“Hopefully this will help (her) healing,” a female juror said outside court.

Judge Michael J. Farrell is expected to sentence Hernandez on Dec. 2 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his conviction on charges of kidnaping for ransom. A torture charge also carries a life prison sentence.

Additionally, Hernandez was found guilty of four counts of rape with a foreign object, one count of rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, making a terrorist threat and mayhem.

During the five-hour attack in a building on Sherman Way, the woman was hit on the head with a baseball bat, bound with rope and duct tape around her head, and repeatedly sexually assaulted, she testified.

During the trial, Hernandez testified that he was under the influence of rock cocaine during the incident. He maintained that he could not remember applying the electrical charges. The defense conceded that Hernandez was guilty of some of the counts, but his attorney argued that he was too intoxicated to form the specific intent necessary to be guilty of the more serious charges.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter S. Berman said Monday that Hernandez is considered a suspect in the disappearance of another woman six months before the warehouse attack.