Drifter Guilty of Attacks on 3 Elderly Women

After a short trial Friday morning, an Ojai drifter was found guilty of sexually assaulting an 89-year-old Ojai woman, and he then pleaded guilty to attacking two other elderly women from east Ventura.

Peter A. Stocks, 39, denied tying up and attacking the Ojai woman in her home last year. But to expedite a plea agreement on the other charges, Stocks waived his right to a jury trial and the case was brought before Ventura County Superior Court Judge Vincent O’Neill.

O’Neill found him guilty of one felony count of sexual assault, and Stocks then pleaded guilty to two more. He faces a maximum sentence of 44 years to life in prison.

In all, Stocks was charged with 15 counts of sexual battery, forcible sex acts, elder abuse and residential burglary. He was not accused of raping the women.

During the half-hour mini-trial, a doctor who treated the Ojai woman testified that she is still suffering mental and physical injuries stemming from the July 13, 1995, assault, in which an intruder tied her to her bedposts with a phone cord and then sexually violated her.

The woman was bound for more than 12 hours before a neighbor heard her calls for help.

Dr. Thomas Bowman said the woman does not have full use of her hands, cannot walk without a cane, and suffers chronic anxiety and sleeplessness.

“In an elderly woman, the extent of those injuries made us concerned that she would never fully recover,” Bowman said.

During an October hearing last year, the woman testified from a wheelchair that she only saw her attacker’s hands and could not identify him.

After reviewing testimony in the case, including a videotape confession Stocks gave police after his arrest last year, O’Neill ruled that Stocks was guilty of the attack.

Stocks, an unemployed construction worker, plans to appeal the decision on the grounds that police did not read him his rights after taking him into custody at an Ojai market Aug. 31, Deputy Public Defender Susan Olson said.

The prosecution’s case was almost derailed earlier this year after it was revealed that the police investigator who interviewed Stocks was under investigation himself for allegedly molesting two teenagers.

A judge ruled in July, however, that Stocks’ case should not be clouded by the allegations.

Stocks’ two voluntary guilty pleas came after he surprisingly confessed to a district attorney’s investigator during a hearing earlier in the week.

At that time, Stocks was sitting in a courtroom while Olson argued legal points in the judge’s chambers.

He confessed to sexually assaulting a 76-year-old woman in her mobile home in June.

And he admitted to yanking a 70-year-old woman out of her bed in August, dragging her into a bathroom where he undressed and fondled her. In both cases, Stocks entered the women’s homes through unlocked doors.

“He has this crushing sense of humiliation and remorse,” Olson said. “He has been quite open about it.”

On Friday, after the mini-trial for the Ojai case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia Kelliher turned to Stocks and asked him a series of questions about a plea agreement to the other two charges.

In a barely audible voice, Stocks responded, “Yes, ma’am,” to each question while sitting hunched over at the defense table.

“Your total potential sentence for everything we have talked about today would be 40 years to life plus four years,” Kelliher told him. Stocks nodded and said he understood the penalty.

Dressed in jailhouse blues with his long blond hair draped down his back, Stocks frequently rocked in his chair during the hourlong hearing, scraping his foot shackles against the chair’s plastic legs.

A longtime Ventura County resident who had most recently been living out of his car in the Ojai Valley, Stocks has never been previously convicted of a sex crime.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28.