MTA Bus Driver Convicted of Sexual Attack on Rider

An MTA bus driver was convicted Thursday of sexually assaulting a female passenger after a five-day trial that included testimony by a woman who won a civil verdict against the man 15 years ago for a similar attack.

After a day and a half of deliberations, a Pomona Superior Court Jury found Leonard Henry Howell, 56, guilty on one felony count of sexual assault by penetration with a foreign object. Howell was accused of assaulting a 26-year-old San Dimas woman last August in his empty bus as it sat in an industrial area after she fell asleep after taking cold medication.

“He’ll be on a different bus tonight. It’s the end of the line for Mr. Howell,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Christina S. Weiss shortly after the bus driver was led away to be taken to the County Jail. “I was very pleased with the verdict. This man is a very serious threat to female passengers.”

Jurors found Howell not guilty on a second sexual assault charge, a variation on the first count, which related to the woman’s ability to fend off an attack. That charge required that prosecutors show Howell had attacked her because she had been rendered unconscious by medication.

Howell’s attorney, Gary Meastas, said his client has requested that he file a motion for a new trial. “If that’s denied,” Meastas said, “he’ll pursue an appeal vigorously.”

The bus driver is scheduled to be sentenced May 15 and faces up to eight years in prison.

Howell and the MTA’s predecessor, the Southern California Rapid Transit Authority, were held liable by a civil jury in 1991 for the assault on a female passenger from Baldwin Park. But criminal charges were never filed because of what prosecutors say was accidental oversight by police agencies.

MTA officials have refused to say why Howell wasn’t fired after the 1991 verdict or to discuss internal reports citing complaints about Howell and female passengers dating to 1982.

The San Dimas woman has sued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, alleging that the agency should have known Howell was a “grave and serious risk” to the public because of his “history of raping and assaulting his women bus passengers.”

During the trial last week, the woman testified that she left work early Aug. 14, 2000, because she was sick. Howell offered her a ride about 2:15 p.m. at the El Monte bus station to Los Angeles on his air-conditioned bus on a scorching day. He bought her food. He then stopped to get her some over-the-counter medication in La Puente.

She fell asleep and awoke to find herself half undressed with him kissing her bare chest on an empty bus, she testified. Experts testified Howell’s DNA was found in saliva on the woman’s chest.

A second woman told jurors that on New Year’s Eve 1986 she was riding to work in Pomona on the bus alone with Howell when he stopped the bus, propositioned her, knocked her out and raped her.