HomeCity NewsJudge Sentences Serial Rapist to Life in Prison

Judge Sentences Serial Rapist to Life in Prison

By Terri Vermeulen Keith
City News Service

A Santa Clarita man who pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting seven women was sentenced Wednesday to 310 years to life in prison by a judge who called him a “predator.”
“Frankly, it’s stunning how much pain and suffering one man can inflict,” Superior Court Judge Jared Moses said after hearing statements from four survivors who were attacked by the convicted rapist, Nicolas Morales. “We’re here because of the courage of the seven women,” at least one of whom was assaulted in Burbank.
The judge said that he believed all of the victims who testified at an earlier hearing that they didn’t think they were going to survive the attacks, saying that one woman’s head was smashed against a vehicle dashboard and that another woman was choked when she tried to fight back.
“The defendant was a predator pretending to be an Uber or Lyft driver,” the judge said. “He took advantage of a position of trust by pretending to be a rideshare driver.”
The judge also ordered the 49-year-old defendant to register as a sex offender if he is released from prison, but said he believes the defendant is too dangerous to ever live outside prison walls.
As his trial was underway last month, Morales pleaded no contest to 27 counts including forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sodomy by use of force and sexual penetration by a foreign object.
Morales’ victims gave emotional accounts during the sentencing hearing, with one woman identified in court as Jane Doe No. 1, writing in a statement read on her behalf in court that she has “never been so hurt and broken before” and that she still has trauma and flashbacks of the event.
Another woman, identified in court as Jane Doe No. 2, said she wishes that the defendant could know how he impacted his victims’ lives.
“I just feel like my life, it just stopped there. I haven’t been able to move on at all,” she said.
Jane Doe No. 3 said she had “waited for this day for a very long time,” saying she felt that she faced an imminent threat of death for three hours and wondered if it was her last day alive after calling for an Uber and getting in Morales’ vehicle as he posed as a ride-sharing service driver.
“You didn’t break me. You only broke yourself and your family,” she said in her statement.
Jane Doe No. 6 told the judge that she opted after the attack to run five miles from her job to her home instead of getting into a car with someone she didn’t know, and that she started “blaming myself.” She said she is still trying to find herself.
The rapes occurred in areas throughout Los Angeles County, including Burbank, between October 2016 and January 2018.
Morales was arrested in February 2018 by Alhambra police and has remained behind bars since then.

First published in the March 4 print issue of the Burbank Leader.

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