Worker Raped Her, Runaway Testifies

A 15-year-old runaway girl testified Wednesday that a Simi Valley factory worker--posing as a much younger man--picked her up at an arcade, took her home and raped her.

The witness is one of 10 girls between the ages of 12 and 15 that prosecutors say Victor Becerra either raped or molested in Simi Valley last summer.

Becerra, 27, is charged with nearly 50 felony counts of rape and molestation. His trial, which started this week at the county courthouse in Ventura, is expected to last two weeks.

Witnesses were called to the stand for the first time Wednesday and one of Becerra’s former co-workers testified that Becerra also lied about his age at work and often boasted about having intercourse with virgins.

“He told me he was 22. He told me his girlfriend was 15,” Gilbert Rincon said.

Prosecutors allege that Becerra posed as a teen or a man in his early 20s and frequented teen haunts in Simi Valley. He is accused of luring the girls back to his Simi Valley home and plying several of them with alcohol and marijuana before raping or molesting them.

The 15-year-old girl testified that she ran away from home in June 1995. She said she spent the day at the Family Fun Center, where she met Becerra and told him of her plight.

She said Becerra, who claimed to be 20, told her she could stay at his sister’s home that night and she left the arcade with him.

But Becerra took her back to his house and raped her, she testified.

Becerra has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.