Man gets life for raping, kidnapping girl from Calif. home
LOS ANGELES -- A 34-year-old man was sentenced to life in state prison without the possibility of parole Thursday for kidnapping a 10-year-old Northridge girl at knifepoint from her bed and repeatedly raping her.
Summers kidnapped the girl from her bedroom in the early morning hours of March 27, 2013. She was found near a Starbucks at the corner of Canoga Avenue and Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills 12 hours later.
Prosecutors said he sexually assaulted her in numerous locations before letting her go.
He was arrested in a small Mexican village in April 2013, and brought back to the U.S. by FBI agents. Summers had checked himself into a rehab facility in Mexico under a fake name.
At the sentencing hearing Thursday, the victim's father expressed his anger.
"I can't understate the profound impact of what this monster has done. It has affected every aspect of my family," he said. "This monster, and he is a monster. He is a danger to everybody. If he ever gets out again, he will do it again."
It was a case that a jury might have never seen. The father said Thursday he had wanted Summers sent to prison with a plea deal so that the child would not have to recount the ugly details in a trial. But the girl insisted on testifying.
"She needed to make sure that this guy never had the hope of ever getting out again so he could hurt someone else," the victim's father said.
The young victim also addressed the judge.
"It was not right, and no one should ever have to go through that, ever," she said. "So I hope he goes away forever and even after that so he can never get out."
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen denied a defense motion for a new trial and told the victim she was one of the bravest young women he had seen.
"My heart goes out to you and your family for the terror and suffering you have endured," Coen said.
The judge noted that Summers' crime that day in March 2013 followed his release from prison under AB 109, which gives felons a chance to straighten themselves out with counseling and rehab out in the community. Summers will never have that chance again.
"He has shown no remorse. He has shown no regret. The only regret he has shown is he regrets getting caught," the victim's father said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
