Trial Set to Begin in Belmont Shore Rapes

Jury selection is set to begin today in the trial of Mark Wayne Rathbun, accused of being the Belmont Shore serial rapist. Rathbun was arrested in November 2002 in connection with a five-year series of assaults on women in their homes. Rathbun, 32 at the time of his arrest, has remained jailed since then. He pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges stemming from the assaults on women in Long Beach and Orange County. He was arrested in the neighborhood where a 30-year-old woman had fought off an intruder by biting him.