Prosecutor Urges Jury to Convict Rape Case Defendant

A prosecutor urged a jury Tuesday to convict a man on trial for repeatedly raping two North Hollywood women in neighboring apartments on consecutive nights.

*

A Van Nuys Superior Court jury will begin deliberations today in the trial of Scott Daniel Artamenko, 24, who faces 19 felony counts stemming from the two attacks in an apartment building on Colfax Avenue.

Often looking directly at the defendant, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven J. Ipsen accused Artamenko of repeated sexual assaults where he was “raping not just her body, but also her emotions.”

The first woman, now 44, testified that she was repeatedly raped during the early morning hours of June 30 of last year. From the witness stand, she tentatively identified Artamenko as the rapist.

When the first victim heard screaming from a nearby apartment the next morning, July 1, she summoned police, according to testimony. Officers knocked on the door, and the second woman, who is 30, was able to flee. Artamenko was taken into custody after a brief struggle with police.

Ipsen said that when the first woman and her boyfriend viewed the suspect after he was arrested, Artamenko looked at the man and said, “Go ahead, charge me so the police will kill me and I won’t have to deal with this.”

Describing the similarity of the two attacks, Ipsen said the incidents were “a repeated nightmare” similar to the movie “Groundhog Day,” where the lead character has to live the same day over and over.

Defense attorney Patricia A. Andreoni-Alcazar stressed that there is reasonable doubt that Artamenko committed the first attack.

“Even on the stand, (the first woman) couldn’t be 100% sure my client was the attacker,” she said.

Andreoni-Alcazar acknowledged that Artamenko had sex with the second woman, but said he was under the influence of alcohol and could not form the intent necessary for a criminal conviction.

If convicted on all 19 counts, Artamenko would face more than 100 years in prison.