4 Teens Charged in Rape of Unconscious Girl, 16

Four San Fernando Valley teenagers were charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl who had passed out drinking alcohol during a daytime party at a student’s home in Van Nuys.

The girl, who police said was a friend of her alleged assailants, was found unconscious Friday in a bedroom, her body covered with bruises, cuts and bites. She had been raped and sodomized by at least six people, witnesses told police. She awoke hours later at a Woodland Hills hospital and said she did not remember what happened.

Nathaniel Sanchez, 18, was charged Wednesday with one felony count of attempted rape of an unconscious person. The Van Nuys man was being held at County Jail in lieu of $55,000 bail. Prosecutors also filed charges of rape and sodomy of an unconscious person against two boys, ages 16 and 17, and are requesting that they be tried as adults. A 14-year-old boy was charged in Juvenile Court with attempted rape and sodomy.

Authorities would not release the names of the accused juveniles. Police said they all attend Birmingham High School in Van Nuys and belong to the same tagging crew--a group of graffiti vandals.

Police are investigating the roles of three other teenage boys and said more charges might follow. A medical examination of the girl yielded evidence of sexual assault, police said, but identifying attackers through DNA testing could take weeks.

“At least six [sexually assaulted her] but there may be others,” said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Lt. Horace Frank. “Once we continue with the investigation, with the interviews, we will have a better picture in terms of the total number.”

Julie Korenstein, a Los Angeles Board of Education member who represents the area, said, “For anyone to affirm their manhood by attacking another human being is so grievous and despicable.”

Authorities said about 15 truants, including the girl, started drinking alcohol Friday morning at the house of one of the students. Police said the boy’s parents were at work.

“They were all skipping school,” Frank said. “They were all friends. She was part of this tagging group.”

The girl passed out, and the other students took turns assaulting her, Frank said. Deputy Dist. Attys. Eduards Abele and Alan Yochelson said there is no evidence so far that the girl was given drugs.

Someone at the house found the girl that afternoon in the bedroom and paged one of her friends, Yochelson said. After arriving, the girl’s friends took her home when they could not wake her. The girl’s father took her to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Woodland Hills, Yochelson said.

She was still unconscious when she was admitted at 6 p.m. Friday, hospital officials said. Her body was covered with bite marks, abrasions and bruises, and a medical examination revealed that she had been sexually assaulted, Kaiser spokeswoman Lisa Kort said. Police were called about two hours later.

The next day, the girl was transferred to another hospital, where, prosecutors said, a more extensive rape examination was performed. She was later discharged.

Yochelson said one juvenile, the party host, was arrested Friday but released without being charged. Two other juveniles were arrested Monday but have not been charged. All three boys denied any involvement to police. The party’s host said he was with another girl at the time of the alleged attack, Yochelson said.

Proposition 21, passed earlier this year, allows prosecutors to charge juveniles as adults in violent crimes. This case does not qualify because the rape was not by force, Yochelson said. For the minor defendants to be tried as adults, a Juvenile Court judge would have to find them unfit to stand trial as juveniles.

Birmingham High does not allow its students to leave campus during the day, said officials at the Los Angeles Unified School District. Two school police officers are assigned there.

But students at schools across Los Angeles regularly cut class for daytime parties, said Robert Ivey, an assistant watch commander for the district’s police department. “When you’ve got a group of kids who want to ditch school, they’re going to. If there aren’t adults standing shoulder to shoulder, surrounding the perimeter fences, somebody’s going to go over the fence.”

Rumors flew Wednesday at Birmingham as students learned of the attack. School officials made no announcements to students or parents. Principal Gerald Kleinman did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

“Just like everybody else, I’m trying to figure out what happened,” said Jesten Hayman, 17, a senior.

Times staff writers David Pierson, Hang Nguyen, Jason Song, Sue Fox and Patrick McGreevy and special correspondent Richard Fausset contributed to this story.