A convicted killer has been sentenced to 164 years to life in state prison for sexually assaulting and attempting to kill a woman in the Antelope Valley in 2015.
Jurors convicted Leonard Earl Bales, 48, of Palmdale, last month of one count each of attempted murder, kidnapping to commit oral copulation, forcible oral copulation, assault with a deadly weapon involving a belt, assault with intent to commit oral copulation, false imprisonment by violence and criminal threats, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
The jury also found true allegations of kidnapping, tying or binding, personally using a deadly or dangerous weapon and great bodily injury.
Bales choked a 35-year-old woman into unconsciousness, kidnapped her and took her early in the morning of Sept. 26, 2015, to a vacant home in Quartz Hill, where he dragged, tied and bound and sexually assaulted her.
The woman eventually managed to escape from her bindings and run naked to a neighbor who called police.
Bales was convicted in 1998 for killing a woman in Lancaster, according to the District Attorney’s Office. He was sentenced to 18 years for that crime and was released on parole in November 2013, authorities said.
