Boy Pleads Guilty as Accomplice in Rape

A 14-year-old boy pleaded guilty Wednesday to acting as an accomplice in the gang rape of a drunk, unconscious teenage girl during a daytime ditch party in Van Nuys.

The boy’s plea was not part of a deal, prosecutors said. Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Feldstern declined to say whether he has agreed to testify against other defendants.

The boy was sentenced Wednesday by Los Angeles County Superior Court Commissioner Jack Gold to a maximum of three years in custody.

The hearing at Sylmar Juvenile Court was closed to the public. The boy “admitted his part in criminal activities,” Feldstern said.

The boy was one of about 15 students from Birmingham High School who played hooky Dec. 1 at a party in the home of one of the youths, whose parents were at work.

After a 16-year-old girl passed out from drinking, several youths raped her, police said.

The girl, who was found in a bedroom with bruises, cuts and bite marks on her body, woke up hours later at a Woodland Hills hospital. She told authorities she did not remember what happened, but a medical exam showed she had been sexually assaulted.

She is undergoing counseling, said LAPD Det. Craig Rhudy.

Three juveniles and an 18-year-old man have been charged.

“We have one suspect outstanding who has not been identified at this point,” Rhudy said Wednesday.

The 14-year-old originally was charged with attempted rape of an unconscious person, and could have faced a maximum of four years in custody. His lesser sentence is for the crime he admitted--accessory to rape.

He will spend up to one year in juvenile camp and remain on probation until he is 21, Feldstern said.

Prosecutors are now seeking to try 16-year-old Alejandro Zamora and 17-year-old Jose Sanchez, who were charged with rape and sodomy of an unconscious person, as adults.

Sanchez’s brother, Nathaniel, 18, was charged with attempted rape of an unconscious person, also a felony.

The two juveniles are in custody, and the older Sanchez is being held in County Jail on $55,000 bail.

All three have pleaded not guilty. Nathaniel Sanchez faces a preliminary hearing in Van Nuys Superior Court on Jan. 3. His brother and Zamora are scheduled to appear at a fitness hearing on Jan. 19 in Sylmar Juvenile Court, where a judge will decide whether to try them as adults.