Youth Charged in Attack on Elderly Woman

Prosecutors will seek to try a 16-year-old boy as an adult for the attempted rape of an 85-year-old woman whom he subdued with pepper spray and then attacked, authorities said Wednesday.

The youth was also charged Tuesday with three counts of burglary, two counts of receiving stolen property and four counts of indecent exposure, said Deputy Dist. Atty. David Gelfound.

The attempted-rape charge stems from a Friday’s incident in which the boy broke into the woman’s home on North Beachwood Drive at 10:15 p.m., said Sgt. Len Doran of the Burbank Police Department.

The woman awoke and the boy doused her eyes with pepper spray and shone a flashlight beam in her eyes, he said. He then tried to undress her and told her he was going to rape her, said Doran.

“She screamed and kicked him in the groin,” said Doran. The boy fled and the woman called police.

Police found fingerprints on the woman’s bedroom window and matched them with the boy’s fingerprints obtained in a previous arrest for possession of marijuana and vandalism, Doran said. He was arrested the day after the incident.

Police said he is also a suspect in the burglary of a 90-year-old woman, Doran said.

“It is paramount that he be tried as an adult due to the serious nature of the charges,” Gelfound said.

A fitness hearing will be set Aug. 30.