Man Pleads Guilty to Sex Assaults of 4 in Ojai : Courts: Kevin Richard Malone, 37, faces a state prison term of 27 to 84 2/3 years for the string of incidents in 1993-94, authorities say.

Averting an emotional trial on charges that he attacked a string of Ojai women, a 37-year-old twice-convicted prowler pleaded guilty Wednesday to eight counts of sexual assault.

Speaking haltingly and trembling slightly, Kevin Richard Malone answered “guilty” to the charges of sexual assault, as well as one count each of residential burglary and residential robbery.

“Mr. Malone is very, very sorry for the agony he has caused these people,” criminal defense attorney Willard P. Wiksell said of the victims, including two women who were raped and two others who were sexually assaulted. “He has suffered brain damage, and he had several brain surgeries.

“He realizes that there were people who suffered because of his actions,” the attorney said.

Malone’s plea not only spares the victims from testifying, it saves authorities from having to explain in court how they initially arrested and charged the wrong man as the Ojai rapist.

As a result of the plea, which came during a scheduled arraignment, the former Ojai-area resident will receive between 27 years and 84 2/3 years in state prison at sentencing, expected in July, authorities said.

Between December, 1993, and September, 1994, Malone sexually assaulted four women and targeted two others in a burglary and robbery, authorities said.

The sexual assaults frightened residents of the Ojai Valley and sparked community meetings to warn women how to protect themselves. The investigation of the case also brought unwanted negative publicity to law authorities, who initially arrested and charged the wrong man in the case.

Prosecutors on Wednesday said that Malone pleaded guilty to the most serious of the charges levied against him in a 24-count indictment handed down last month.

The remaining 14 counts will be dropped, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Calvert. Even if Malone had been convicted of all 24 charges at trial, he would still be facing the same amount of prison time under state law, prosecutors said.

“The point is that he pled guilty to all the major charges,” Calvert said outside court after the plea.

The district attorney’s office wanted to take Malone off the streets and spare the victims from having to endure painful testimony at trial, Calvert said, adding: “I’m delighted with the plea.”

As he was led out of the courtroom, the tall, slender Malone glanced into the audience and nodded at his mother, an elderly woman who walks with the aid of a cane. She quickly left court after her son’s plea without commenting.

In an earlier interview, the mother attributed her son’s crimes to mental problems and complications of brain surgery.

Defense attorney Wiksell said he was not able to provide details of the operations.

But Wiksell said Malone shared the view that it would be unfair to drag the case out and force his victims to face him from the witness box.

“He realizes by pleading guilty he can spare these woman any embarrassment,” said Wiksell, a court-appointed lawyer.

In January, prosecutors charged a 21-year-old Casitas Springs man in the case and jailed him for six days before results from DNA tests cleared him as a potential suspect. The mistake prompted Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury to issue a rare public apology to the first suspect, saying officials had erred in arresting and charging him.

Malone was arrested on unrelated charges Jan. 22, only days before the release of the first suspect. Ventura police took Malone into custody on suspicion of looking into a woman’s window at the Tradewinds Apartments in Ventura--a crime for which he pleaded guilty and is serving a seven-month jail term.

When he was arrested, Malone wore a beard and drove a blue pickup truck with a camper shell--details matching the descriptions of the Ojai assailant that the victims had given sheriff’s investigators.

Still, mindful of the mistaken arrest of the first suspect, prosecutors did not charge Malone for six weeks, until after DNA tests were completed.

Malone had run afoul of local law enforcement before. After being convicted of peeping and prowling in 1989, Malone was ordered to participate in a sex offender treatment program at Chino State Prison. He told counselors there that he was physically abused as a child and had abusive thoughts about women, according to prison records.