Jury finds Chino Hills man guilty of attempted murder
After about three hours of deliberations, a West Valley Superior Court jury found a Chino Hills man guilty of attempted murder this morning for a near-fatal attack on his estranged wife in 2006.
During the trial, prosecutors said Oscar Gonzalez, 46, hid in the trunk of his estranged wife's car while the woman was at work in a Chino factory, then emerged and tried to strangle her with a rope after she began driving.
Maria del Rosario Gonzalez survived the Feb. 17, 2006 attack after a Chino police officer saw her car run a stop sign following the attack.
Oscar Gonzalez faces a prison sentence of 15 years to life for the attempted murder conviction.
Gonzalez's potential sentence for attempted murder was lengthened because the jury found true an allegation that Gonzalez acted willfully, with deliberation and premeditation.
Gonzalez also faces an eight-year prison sentence for a kidnapping conviction stemming from the attack in November 2007.
The jury in that trial deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict on the attempted-murder charge, and the district attorney's office re-filed the case.
Gonzalez is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 20.
At that hearing, Judge Michael Libutti will decide whether the prison sentences for his two convictions will run consecutively (one after the other) or concurrently (at the same time), said Deputy District Attorney Michele Daly, the prosecutor.
The jury, which included eight women and four men, deliberated from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, and from 9 a.m. to about 10:30 a.m. this morning. The verdict was read at about 11 a.m.
During nine days of opening statements, trial testimony and closing arguments, Gonzalez's attorney argued that his client was clinically depressed over the separation with his wife, and was unable at the time of the attack to understand the consequences of his actions.
The defense attorney, Robert Von Schlichting, also said that on the night of the attack the rope was tightened when it became tangled in Maria del Rosario Gonzalez's hair.
He also said the rope was further tightened when the woman and police officers tugged on it in an attempted to loosen it.
Perhaps the most harrowing part of the trial was the testimony from Maria del Rosario Gonzalez, who during two days on the witness stand cried and appeared to shake in fear as she recounted the details of her husband's early-morning attack.
She said her husband had threatened to kill her several times before the attack, and had once suggested the couple take out life-insurance policies to benefit their two daughters, then kill themselves.
Oscar Gonzalez did not testify during the trial.
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