NEWPORT BEACH — A 27-year-old Los Angeles man pleaded guilty Monday and was immediately sentenced to 10 days in jail and 120 hours of community service for groping a victim at a storage facility in Irvine.
Rafael Ezequiel Cortez pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of touching an intimate part of another person. As part of the plea deal, misdemeanor counts of battery and false imprisonment were dismissed.
The assault occurred on June 25, 2022, at Extra Space Storage at 17 Shield, according to Irvine police.
The victim told police she was waiting for the elevator when the doors opened and two men walked out. However, one of the men reentered the elevator after she got in. Surveillance video showed the man getting back into the elevator.
The victim told ABC7 the attacker lunged at her, pulled down her sports bra and “latched on to my breast.”
She pushed him away and told him to stop, police said. The victim said the man also hit her and she hit him. She said she was left with a swollen face and a black and blue eye.
She finally managed to escape the elevator and get away from him on the first floor of the facility, police said. The suspect ran off and got into a moving truck, according to police.
Cortez was employed by a moving company that was present at the facility on the day of the assault.
The Register staff contributed to this story.
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