A Monrovia man faces life in state prison after a jury convicted him of 12 felony charges Thursday for the kidnappings, assaults and rapes of four women over a five-year period, officials said.
Jason Chung Chien Yu, 43, was found guilty of three counts of sodomy by force, two counts of kidnapping to commit rape, two counts of assault to commit rape, two counts of false imprisonment and one count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and making criminal threats, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a written statement.
The kidnappings and attacks took place between 2012 and 2017 in the San Gabriel Valley and in Lynwood, Deputy Lilian Peck of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Information Bureau said at the time.
“In February 2012, Yu kidnapped a woman to commit rape,” prosecutors said in a written statement. “In April 2016, the defendant beat and sodomized a victim. He also sodomized and assaulted another woman in April. In February 2017, the defendant kidnapped another woman and sexually assaulted her as well.”
The victims ranged in age from 22 to 60, officials said.
Yu would lure the women with promises of money and drugs, sheriff’s officials said.
“The suspect’s predilection to drive victims to motels for the purpose of having sex and, instead, holding them captive, and forcibly assaulting them sexually, was seen as the general mode of operation,” Peck said in a written statement.
Detectives from the Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau announced in June of 2016 that they were seeking a serial sexual assault suspect who had been operating in the area.
Yu was subsequently identified as the attacker and arrested by a Sheriff’s Department fugitive recovery team on May 24, 2017.
He was initially charged with nine felony counts, but three more later added, Los Angeles County Superior Court records show.
Yu is expected to be sentenced to life in state prison when he returns to court for sentencing on June 26, officials said.
