Suspect in boy’s rape has history of sex charges

Bill Gang

Friday, May 30, 1997 | 11:44 a.m.

A three-time convicted sex offender is back on trial on charges that he repeatedly raped a 9-year-old boy after abducting him at knifepoint as he was returning home from buying a candy bar and a soft drink.

Robert Jennings, 35, had been out of prison only a few months on June 11, 1995, when the assault occurred in an abandoned shed in the desert near Lamb Boulevard and Owens Avenue.

If he is convicted again, he could go to prison for the rest of his life with no chance for parole.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Langford said during opening statements Thursday that the rapist walked the youngster to the shed and asked him, "Did you ever play doctor?"

The boy was ordered to strip and was assaulted over a two-hour period before his attacker threatened to slit his throat if he told anyone what had occurred, Langford said.

But the youngster ran home and told his father what had happened. Within minutes the youngster had given police a description of the rapist.

The boy detailed the man's salt-and-pepper hair, moustache and scorpion tattoo, and also remembered the attacker's filtered Camel cigarettes.

Langford said the boy took police to the shed, where a fingerprint later matched to Jennings was recovered from the door frame. The youngster then picked out a photo of Jennings from several provided by police.

In the defense opening, Deputy State Public Defender Richard Palma downplayed the identification as the unreliable product of a child.

Detectives were waiting for Jennings five days after the attack when he arrived at his sister's house, but the defendant fled when he spotted one officer and had to be tackled by another.

Langford told the jury in District Judge Myron Leavitt's courtroom that at the time, Jennings was carrying a pack of filtered Camel cigarettes and a knife similar to the one described by the victim.

"The evidence points absolutely and with no doubt to the defendant," Langford said.

Palma explained the attempt to flee by noting that the defendant also was carrying a small amount of what was probably marijuana and a syringe. He suggested that Jennings was trying to avoid arrest on drug charges.

Palma didn't dispute that the boy was "brutally raped" but told the jury that "the only conclusion you can reach is that they don't have the right man."

He pointed out that although semen was found, it was never matched to Jennings or anyone else.

During the opening statement, Palma didn't offer an explanation for Jennings' fingerprint being at the rape scene.

Jennings first conviction was for a felony lewdness offense in California in 1980.

In 1988 he pleaded guilty to a felony burglary charge and a gross misdemeanor count of open and gross lewdness in Reno.

Jennings was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to a reduced count of soliciting a minor to commit an infamous crime against nature. He originally had been charged with sexual assault of a minor.

Jennings was never paroled from prison, instead serving out the entire term in a little over three years.

In the current case, Jennings is facing four counts of sexual assault of a minor and one charge of kidnapping with the use of a deadly weapon.

The counts all carry life prison terms, although parole would be possible at some point.

If Jennings is convicted and then declared by Leavitt to be an habitual criminal, he would not be eligible for parole.