Man Dressed Up As Police Officer, Assaulted Woman In OC: Courts

Crime & Safety

Man Dressed Up As Police Officer, Assaulted Woman In OC: Courts A 42-year-old man pleaded guilty Thursday and was immediately sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual assaults on two women.

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — A 42-year-old man pleaded guilty Thursday and was immediately sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual assaults on two women, including one when he was masquerading as an undercover Anaheim police officer.

Sean Michael Vasquez pleaded guilty to forcible oral copulation and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, both felonies. As part of his plea deal, felony counts of kidnapping to commit a sexual assault, assault with intent to commit a sex offense, false imprisonment, sodomy by force, and rape were dismissed along with a misdemeanor count of impersonating a police officer.

Vasquez was given credit for 992 days in jail and ordered by Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin to register as a sex offender.

Vasquez lured in one victim posing as a modeling agent in December 2016, according to testimony at his preliminary hearing.

The two eventually agreed to a "role play" date May 13, 2017, in Anaheim, where she was to pretend to be a prostitute, according to prosecutors. When he showed up, he flashed a police badge and falsely claimed to be an undercover cop.

Vasquez drove the woman to a self-storage facility parking lot, where he is accused of handcuffing her, getting her in the back of the car he was driving, and then locking the vehicle as he took her driver's license, prosecutors said.

Vasquez then went into the backseat with her, locked the vehicle again and demanded she perform a sex act on him as a way to resolve her "legal problem." When the woman refused, he drove her to areas known for prostitution in Santa Ana and then directed her to try to rob people who solicit prostitution, prosecutors said.

When that failed, the defendant drove the woman to a "secluded location" in a residential neighborhood, where he forced her to perform a sex act on him before driving her back to her car, prosecutors said.

The other victim was someone he met who did booking for an escort service when she was 18, according to testimony at his preliminary hearing.

Vasquez told her he had been a captain in the Marine Corps and that "he had killed numerous people" in the Middle East and suffered from post- traumatic stress disorder, according to the preliminary hearing testimony.

The two had a consensual romantic relationship that turned violent in October 2014 in a cabin in Crestline in San Bernardino County, according to the preliminary hearing testimony.

City News Service