A 34-year-old man who posed as a law enforcement officer has been convicted of kidnapping a woman outside a Fullerton nightclub and sexually assaulting her, prosecutors announced.
Nelson Mauricio Lunaty Garcia of Chino Hills was convicted Tuesday in Superior Court in Santa Ana and faces a maximum sentence of 95 years to life in prison when he is sentenced on Sept. 27, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
Garcia had been accused of approaching the victim late on Sept. 2, 2015 in the parking lot of the InCahoots nightclub in the 1400 block of South Lemon Street and leading her to believe he was a peace officer by asking if she had been drinking, according to the District Attorney's Office.
Garcia administered a fake field sobriety test, using a tongue depressor and a cotton swab, while forcing the woman into the back seat of his car, prosecutors said.
Garcia bound the woman's hands together with zip ties and drove for several miles to a secluded location, where he sexually assaulted her, according to the District Attorney's Office.
Garcia then returned the woman to the nightclub parking lot and released her.
Earlier the same night, Garcia had approached another woman as she sat in her vehicle in the club's parking lot and asked if she had been drinking and if she needed water or a police escort home. She declined and drove away.
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Friends of the assaulted woman saw Garcia in the InCahoots parking lot on Sept. 9, 2015, and called Fullerton police, who investigated and arrested Garcia at the scene after finding a loaded gun, handcuffs, tongue depressors, cotton swabs and zip ties.
Garcia was found guilty of kidnapping to commit a sex offense, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by a foreign object and force, sodomy by force, attempted forcible rape and attempted kidnapping to commit a sex offense -- all felonies.
Garcia was also convicted of carrying a loaded firearm on his person or in a vehicle in a public place and four counts of assault -- all misdemeanors -- and the sentencing allegations of posing an increased risk of harm to the victim and kidnapping.
