John Jefferson
Joel James Gonzales (Ventura County District Attorney).
A California man will spend more than 16 years in prison after a three-day crime spree in which he attacked two patients at the nursing home where he worked, broke into a house through a doggy door and tried to kill a 6-year-old girl during her first sleepover, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said.
Joel James Gonzales, 28, pleaded guilty in August to felony lewd acts on a dependent adult in August, about a month after a judge declared a mistrial when a jury deadlocked on the charge. Jurors did convict him of attempted murder of the girl, felony assault with intent to commit rape during a burglary and misdemeanor assault.
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Gonzales worked as a caretaker for dementia and Alzheimer’s at the Royal Gardens elder care facility in Camarillo, which is about 50 miles northwest of Los Angeles. On October 15, 2020, Gonzales assaulted two patients. Prosecutors said he cornered his first victim several times, pushed her down on her bed and tried to rip her clothes off. The suspect relented after the victim fought back.
In the second attack, Gonzales walked a 90-year-old dementia patient into a storage closet, locked her inside and “performed lewd acts on the victim before staff started knocking on the door,” prosecutors said.
The next day, Gonzales crawled through a doggy door at a Camarillo house, “surprising the homeowner,” according to prosecutors.
“Gonzales was told to leave but refused. He wandered around the house until a deputy with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office arrived,” prosecutors said.
Deputies arrested Gonzales, but he was released to family later that day. That night a six-year-old girl was having her first sleepover with family’s daughter. Around 5 a.m. Oc. 17, 2020, family members started hearing loud banging noises from the room where the two young girls were sleeping.
“A teenager in the home was the first to investigate and saw Gonzales violently beating and choking the six-year-old victim in her sleeping bag. The teenager rushed at Gonzales, knocking him off the victim,” prosecutors wrote.
The parents at the home held down Gonzalez and called 911. Cops found the victim in and out of consciousness, her face bloodied and swollen. Authorities say the victim survived but suffered brain trauma.
Gonzales originally pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity before changing his plea to guilty. A judge sentenced him on Sept. 25. Senior Deputy District Attorney Tom Steele said the convictions “enable each of the victims to receive the justice and closure they deserve.”
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