A 20-year-old man has been sentenced to more than 29 years in state prison for attacks on two women and a teenage girl last summer in Bellflower and Lakewood.
Joshua Dwight Cooper was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life as a result of his no contest plea Monday to one count each of forcible oral copulation, sodomy by use of force, assault with intent to commit rape and assault with intent to commit rape on a victim under 18, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.
The charges stemmed from an attack on a 42-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted along a walking path behind the courthouse in Bellflower last Aug. 2, and Aug. 31 assaults on a 29-year-old woman who was pushing her two young children in a stroller in the 9200 block of Palm Street and a teenage girl in a restroom at Lakewood High School, according to Deputy District Attorney Chad Gillette.
A sheriff's deputy saw surveillance tape recorded near one of the attacks, and later identified Cooper, according to Capt. Rick Harpham of the sheriff's Lakewood station.
Cooper was arrested last Sept. 1 and has remained behind bars since then.
Along with his plea to the attacks on the women, Cooper pleaded no contest to residential burglary with a person present in a separate case involving a July 2018 break-in at a Santa Fe Springs apartment, according to the District Attorney's Office.
