A former nursing assistant who was a fugitive for more than a decade after being charged with sexually abusing female patients at a Tarzana hospital was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in state prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.
Ramon Eduardo Rodas Gaspar, 50, pleaded no contest June 7 to four felony counts of sexual battery by fraud and one felony count of sexual penetration of an unconscious person, according to Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Kelly Kraetsch.
The charges involved crimes committed against five female patients between February 2005 and April 2006, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office said shortly after Gaspar's plea.
Former patients reported being sexually assaulted by Gaspar after undergoing surgery, some while still under the effects of anesthesia, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, which launched an investigation in June 2006.
Gaspar -- who worked for two years at what was known at the time as Tarzana Hospital -- failed to show up for a July 2006 court hearing, resulting in a bench warrant being issued for him nearly a month after a $150,000 bond was posted on his behalf. The case was featured on "America's Most Wanted" and investigators learned Gaspar had fled to Guatemala, where he was arrested in February 2017.
He was subsequently returned to Southern California, where he has remained jailed.
