Charges of Kidnaping, Raping Prostitute Refiled : Alleged Victim Surfaces, Trial’s On Again

With the reappearance and testimony of his alleged victim, a 41-year-old Burbank man has for the second time been ordered to stand trial on charges that he kidnaped and repeatedly raped a Hollywood prostitute at gunpoint.

The case against Paul David Sanchez was considered unusual from the start because he was first charged with the sexual kidnaping of a woman who had not filed a complaint and whose identity was unknown at the time. The ruling was made on the basis of eyewitnesses who said they saw the woman try to escape from Sanchez’s van.

It took police several months to locate the woman, but she disappeared again and the charges were dropped in January.

However, the 23-year-old woman has been found once more and she took the stand this week at a preliminary hearing in Pasadena Municipal Court. As a result, Judge Victor H. Person on Tuesday ordered Sanchez to stand trial and set bail at $50,000.

Agreed to Intercourse

The woman testified that Sanchez had picked her up in his van in Hollywood on July 14, 1985, and that she agreed to have sexual intercourse with him for $30 so that she might purchase drugs. After the initial intercourse, she said, Sanchez took her to a house in Burbank where she purchased heroin.

Shortly after the woman used the heroin in the van, she testified, Sanchez pulled out a gun, placed electrical tape over her eyes, handcuffed her and raped her several times. During the night, Sanchez took her to the home of one of his friends and forced her to have sexual intercourse with the friend, she testified. She said the man paid Sanchez for her services. Sanchez then kept her in the van 10 to 12 hours longer and raped her several more times, she testified.

Another witness, John T. Wheelock, testified that, on July 15, 1985, he saw a woman, shackled at her feet and nude from the waist down, jump out of a van parked near a factory where Sanchez worked on San Fernando Road in Glendale. Wheelock, a foreman at Transo Envelope Co., said the woman screamed for help, then was grabbed by a man in a green uniform and taken back into the van.

Admitted Incident

At an earlier hearing, Sanchez admitted pushing the woman back into the van and driving her to Griffith Park, where he said he dropped her off. He said she was a prostitute whom he had picked up and was helping through the trauma of drug withdrawal.

The woman later was found after her friend read a newspaper article about the case and told the district attorney’s office that the woman was a patient at a drug rehabilitation program at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

After the hearing Tuesday, Sanchez’s attorney, Benson N. Redding, said he will attempt to have bail reduced, pointing out that Sanchez recently posted $50,000 bail in a similar case in which he allegedly kidnaped and raped a 26-year-old Hollywood-based prostitute on July 5, 1985.

Police said that prostitute escaped, naked and handcuffed, by running from his van in Glendale. She, too, has testified against Sanchez.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Tamia Lynn Hope said after the hearing that she will attempt to consolidate the two cases at Sanchez’s arraignment on Aug. 20.