Convicted Rapist to Serve at Least 11 Years in Prison

A 25-year-old man who pleaded no contest to charges he kidnapped and raped a teenage girl was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in prison.

Richard Henry Stine, who faced felony charges of forcible rape and kidnapping, will serve at least 11 years for the attack last December on a 16-year-old girl, who was returning from a grocery store after buying ingredients for Christmas tamales, Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Payne said.

The girl, who lived in Palmdale with her grandmother, was forced at knifepoint into an abandoned house. Her attacker told her several times that she would never leave the house alive, Payne said, and slashed her forearm to make his point.

“He cut her four separate times when she tried to break free,” Payne said.

The girl escaped after her attacker left the house. She and her grandmother immediately reported the rape.

Stine was arrested 12 days later, identified by a distinctive tattoo the victim had described on his hand and by DNA matched to his, Payne said.

Stine has been in jail since his arrest, in lieu of $600,000 bail. His probation report said that in 1997, Stine pleaded guilty to sexual battery and served jail time after an arrest for assault with intent to commit rape in Orange County, according to Payne.