Man Freed After False Imprisonment Gets 52-Year Term

Benny Gene Powell, who was awarded $3.5 million after spending 17 years in prison for a murder conviction that was later overturned, was ordered Thursday to return to prison: this time for a 52-year term.

Powell was sentenced to the maximum term possible by a Riverside County judge for sexually assaulting a UCLA student during a cocaine-stoked frenzy in March, 1993, 13 months after his celebrated prison release.

At best, Powell, 47, could be released on parole in 26 years. But he now faces trial in Vallejo for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman while on $1-million bail awaiting trial in the Riverside County case.

Powell was released from prison in 1992 after being sentenced to life for the 1973 murder of a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff. In November, he was convicted by a Riverside jury for sexually assaulting a 35-year-old UCLA student from Germany.

Powell’s defense attorney pleaded that Powell’s crime was a direct result of the time that he spent behind bars as a falsely accused murderer.

“Who among us could survive that (imprisonment) without some degree of mental impairment?” said attorney Nedra Ruiz, her voice trembling as she seemed to choke back tears.

Ruiz argued that Powell should be given credit for the time he already spent in prison for the murder conviction, saying “each of those years contributed to this crime.”

Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Todd Rash said he felt sorry that Powell was sexually assaulted as a child, but called Powell “one of the clearest examples of a person who poses a significant threat to society.”

Rash noted that Powell had been accused of five previous sexual assaults with strikingly similar patterns of sodomy and that, even though he had not been convicted, he clearly had displayed a history of sexual violence.

“The only break in his pattern of crime,” Rash said, “was the 17 1/2-year-break when he was incarcerated.”

The Riverside jury convicted Powell on seven counts of sexual assault after he ingested cocaine, dressed up as a woman and attacked the UCLA student over a three-hour period in Beaumont.

Powell lamented that cocaine use had started him on a life of sexual violence. But he said, “If I’m a freak behind closed doors, that’s between me and the woman I freak with.”

Judge Edward D. Webster showed no mercy toward Powell, saying he “is extremely dangerous to women. . . . His use of cocaine is uncontrollable. This man is a dope fiend. He uses drugs and he loses control.”

Powell has been receiving $13,000 monthly payments from the city of Los Angeles for two years, part of the $3.5 million he was awarded after being released from prison with a co-defendant.

The two were convicted for the murder of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy in a case investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department. Both were released in 1992 after authorities conceded that they were wrongfully convicted, based partly on false testimony.