Ex-Bus Driver Admits Assaults

A former Orange County bus driver pleaded guilty Monday to sexually assaulting mentally and physically disabled women on his route.

Daniel Carlos Porras, 40, faces a maximum of three years in prison for two felony and two misdemeanor charges, reduced from the original accusations of rape and sodomy in connection with the January 2003 incidents. He will probably also be required to register as a sex offender for life.

“The victims’ concern in testifying and in coming forward in the first place was that no one would believe them,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Craig Cazares. “Well, we did, and now Mr. Porras is taking responsibility.”

Porras, of Anaheim, could have been imprisoned for up to 10 years had jurors convicted him of raping the two women, passengers of the door-to-door service provided to the developmentally disabled by the Orange County Transportation Authority and Laidlaw Transit Services.

In a brief hearing Monday, Porras admitted assaulting the women -- one now a 44-year-old with an IQ of 58 who lives in Anaheim and the other a 29-year-old Buena Park woman with cerebral palsy who uses a wheelchair.

The women told police that on the days of the attacks, Porras would wait until each was the last passenger on the bus, then drive to a secluded parking lot and assault her in the vehicle.

Hearing the guilty plea on the day lawyers were to start selecting a jury was a shock for one victim’s sister.

“We couldn’t have hoped for any better conclusion without my sister having to go through testifying,” said the sister of the 44-year-old woman. “To see him face to face would have been very difficult for her.”

Since she reported the assault, the woman has become more self-assured in some ways and insecure in others, her sister said: “It’s given her confidence to come forward and speak up about things now that she knows she is heard and can make a difference.” Porras was returned to custody Monday after his plea.

The fired driver, who remains unemployed, has developmental problems of his own that prevented him from understanding that he was assaulting the women, said his lawyer, John Patrick Dolan.

The sister plans to make a statement in court when Porras is sentenced Jan. 3, and the prosecutor hopes the other victim also speaks about how much the driver hurt her.

“These women were attempting to live independently for the first time in their lives, relying on the bus service to make that happen,” Cazares said. “Then someone they rely on and trust violates that.”