Inglewood Man Pleads Guilty to Assault in Friend’s Clubbing of 2 Homeless Men in L.A.

A 20-year-old Inglewood man pleaded guilty Wednesday to assault with a deadly weapon for driving a friend downtown to beat two sleeping homeless men with a baseball bat.

William Alexander Orantes, who could have faced life in prison, will serve a three-year sentence under a plea agreement with prosecutors. An attempted murder charge and a second assault charge were dropped.

He also was ordered to pay one of the victims restitution. The amount will be set at a hearing Sept. 13.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Lebovich said Orantes drove his friend, Justin Edward Brumfield, to downtown Los Angeles last August after they viewed a “Bumfights” DVD that showed two self-described alcoholics punching each other. Orantes did not actually beat the men, Lebovich said.

The victims, Gerald McHenry, 38, and Ernest Adams, 56, were sleeping on sidewalks.

Adams was left in a coma for three weeks and suffered permanent scars and the loss of sight in one eye. He has since moved to a studio apartment in Little Tokyo.

Orantes’ lawyer, Nicholas Holt, said he thought that the sentence was reasonable.

A jury convicted Brumfield, 20, last month of two counts of assault but deadlocked on the more serious charge of attempted murder.

Brumfield faces up to 11 years in prison when he is sentenced in October.