Deputies shoot a burg suspect in Azusa;
From Sandi Gibbons at the Los Angeles County DAs office:
LOS ANGELES – A Bakersfield man convicted of stabbing and wounding an Asian man last year during what a jury determined was a hate crime attack was sent to prison today for 22 years.
Aaron Mark Duggan, 28, was sentenced by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo on the basis of a guilty verdict returned by a jury on June 1. Besides finding that it was a hate crime, the jury also determined the victim suffered great bodily injury and that the defendant personally used a knife.
The attack occurred on April 22, 2008, on the track of a junior high school in San Dimas. The victim, Yoo Sun, then 22, was stabbed in the back and ear. A companion who was walking with Sun was attacked, but although bruised, suffered no stab wounds.
Duggan was arrested shortly after the attack and held on a probation violation stemming from an assault conviction in San Luis Obispo County in September 2004. He was charged with the San Dimas attack on March 13, 2008, He has remained in custody on $1.12 million bond.
The defendant was charged with attempted murder. After a trial, the jury found him guilty of the lesser charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter.
The case was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney George Castello of the Hate Crimes Section.
A preliminary hearing for former Rams kicker Tony Zendejas is underway today in Pomona. Sources tell me the woman who accuses Zendejas of raping her in a motel room earlier this year has testified.
I’ll have an update when there’s more information to post.
*Zendejas will face trial in the rape case.
City News Service reports:
Former Los Angeles Rams placekicker Antonio “Tony” Zendejas was ordered today to stand trial on four charges alleging that he drugged a woman at his San Dimas sports bar and sexually assaulted her.
Zendejas, 48, is accused of giving a woman at his restaurant/bar a drink that made her groggy either late Jan. 25 or early Jan. 26. She told authorities that she woke up in a nearby motel room and had been raped.
Pomona Superior Court Judge Charles Horan found sufficient evidence to require the former National Football League player to proceed to trial on one felony count each of rape by use of drugs, rape of an unconscious person, sodomy by anesthesia or controlled substance and sodomy of an unconscious person, according to Deputy District Attorney Rouman
Ebrahim.