WESTMINSTER, Calif. – A 53-year-old man was convicted Thursday of attempting to assault a jogger in Laguna Niguel and then breaking into the home of an 88-year-old woman and sexually assaulting her.
Reginald Jamal Davis was arrested Aug. 13, 2019, in the home he had broken into, prosecutors said.
A 48-year-old woman was jogging about 8:15 p.m. on Alicia Parkway in Laguna Niguel that day when she noticed a man behind her attempting to grab her, according to prosecutors. She told him to stop and threatened to call 911, prosecutors said.
He asked her not to call police but kept chasing after her and attempting to grab her, prosecutors said. She ran into oncoming traffic to try to get someone to stop and help her, but he kept running after her, prosecutors said.
Eventually, a man stopped and let her in his car as she called 911, prosecutors said.
Minutes later, Davis broke into a home nearby through the French doors, prosecutors said. Davis was “smiling and waving” to the victim, so she called 911, prosecutors said.
As the victim was on the phone with a dispatcher she screamed for help and the line was disconnected, prosecutors said. The victim said he came up behind her, grabbed her by the wrist, slammed the phone down and pushed her into the living room, through a hallway and then into a home office, prosecutors said.
The woman screamed as he attempted to take off her clothes so he stuffed a pillow over her face, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, the dispatcher kept calling back and when he heard the ringing he dragged her back to the phone and tried to assure the 911 dispatcher that everything was OK, prosecutors said.
Davis put the victim on the phone and told her to tell the dispatcher that he was a “birthday surprise from her daughter,” prosecutors said.
The victim, in a wheezy voice, told the dispatcher that “her daughter bought her a birthday,” prosecutors said. When the dispatcher asked her if she was OK she said no. Right at that moment deputies arrived and he insisted to the investigators that he was “fulfilling her fantasy,” prosecutors said.
Davis was convicted of assault with intent to commit a sex offense, kidnapping to commit rape, burglary, dissuading a witness from reporting a crime and inflicting injury on an elder adult, all felonies. Jurors also found true sentencing enhancements of crime against a vulnerable victim with a prior conviction.
Davis is scheduled to be sentenced July 21. Davis has a prior criminal history of robbery in Nevada in 1995 and in Washington in 1996, according to prosecutors.
