A Yorba Linda man accused of raping three women, including two victims that he’d met on MySpace, was convicted Thursday for the crimes.
The man pleaded guilty earlier and was convicted, then withdrew the plea, according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney’s office. A jury convicted Jason Ara Erpinar, 23, of two felony counts of rape by intoxication and one felony count of forcible rape, the release said. He faces a maximum sentence of 24 years in state prison and will be sentenced Oct. 26.
According to the D.A.’s statement, in March 2008, Erpinar invited a 22-year-old woman on a date after meeting her on MySpace.
“He went with the victim to two Orange County parks and consumed alcohol with her, and the victim became severely intoxicated,” the statement said. He drove her to a Newport Beach hotel and raped her; the victim was unable to resist because she was intoxicated, the statement said. The next morning, the woman discovered she had scrapes on her face and a cracked tooth, and she went to the hospital and contacted the Newport Beach Police Department, but no criminal case was filed at that time because of insufficient evidence.
The statement said that Erpinar met another victim on MySpace and invited her to a party in La Habra in March 2009. The victim became intoxicated and began to vomit, and Erpinar then raped her on a bedroom floor while she was too intoxicated to resist. The victim reported the rape to La Habra police the next day.
The La Habra police investigation led to a third victim, who was Erpinar’s ex-girlfriend who was been forcibly raped between May and October 2007, the statement said.
Erpinar pleaded guilty in August 2011, but he withdrew the plea two months later.
In December 2010, a Corona del Mar woman called police after discovering that the holiday light installer she’d called was Erpinar, who was free after posting $1 million bail. The woman said at the time that he gave off a “terrible vibe” and after she told him to leave, she looked up his name on the Internet and discovered he was awaiting trial for rape. Read our earlier story here.
