LOS ANGELES (CNS) - A Long Beach man convicted of raping two teenage girls and a 20-year-old woman within about a month in 2016 was sentenced today to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Superior Court Judge Mildred Escobedo imposed the term on Samuel Alexander Vasquez, 31, who was found guilty by a downtown Los Angeles jury Feb. 7 of three counts of forcible rape, two counts of kidnapping and one count each of forcible oral copulation and assault with a deadly weapon. Vasquez kidnapped a 16-year-old girl at knifepoint as she walked Sept. 27, 2016, in South Los Angeles and then raped her in his car, according to Deputy District Attorney Emily Spear.
A 20-year-old woman who accepted a ride from Vasquez in South Los Angeles on Oct. 19, 2016, was raped in his car, according to the District Attorney's Office.The third attack occurred more than a week later when Vasquez forced a 14-year-old girl into his car at knifepoint, sexually assaulted her in his vehicle and tried to inject her with a syringe, according to the District Attorney's Office.
He was arrested in November 2016 by detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division and has remained behind bars since then, according to jail records.