Appeals Court Orders Resentencing of Brothers Serving Time for Rape

Two brothers serving 12-year sentences for the 1981 rape of a young deaf mute girl were ordered by an appellate court Thursday to return to Superior Court for re-sentencings that could mean new, 48-year terms for each of them.

Randall A. Maldonado, now 30, and Phillip G. Maldonado, now 26, could have been eligible for parole next year. But prosecutors hope the 4th District Court of Appeal decision will mean a sentence more in line with the 44 years given the Maldonados’ uncle, William Aguilar, now 41, also convicted in the rape.

Prosecutors at the Maldonado and Aguilar trials in 1982 called it a rape so horrible it was unprecedented in the county. The victim, a 14-year-old Los Alamitos girl, was waiting for friends near a pizza parlor when the three men forced her into their car. She was raped and sodomized near the beach by all three, then taken to four different locations in Santa Ana where the men repeated several sex acts with her, and sold her to four different men who repeatedly raped her.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Cummins called the defendants “three coyotes who saw a wounded rabbit and decided to pick its bones clean.”

Aguilar was convicted of 17 sexual assault and kidnap counts, the Maldonados of 16 counts each.

Aguilar was tried and sentenced by then-Superior Court Judge Alice Marie Stotler, who ordered consecutive sentences on most of the counts, rather than concurrent sentences.

The judge at the Maldonados’ trial was Mark A. Soden, who ordered 12 years combined for two counts each, but stayed sentences on all the other counts. Prosecutors were so outraged that they appealed the judge’s decision, which is rarely done on a sentencing.

Although the appellate court found that Soden, who has since retired, used too much discretion in staying all but two counts, the court’s order is much narrower than prosecutors had hoped for. In fact, the resentencing structure set up by the appellate court could amount to no more than the 12 years the Maldonados have already received.

But what is pleasing to prosecutors is that, with Soden gone from the bench, a new judge might view the case differently and use more discretion in giving the Maldonados a much stricter sentence.

“Judge Soden ended up saying to the defendants that all the rapes and sodomies and other activity after the first incident, he’s giving them for free,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Brent Romney. “We’re hoping that a new judge will view those separate incidents as the horrible crimes they were.”

Romney said 48 years is not out of line for the type of crime that occurred.

After the Maldonados were sentenced in 1982, Soden was picketed by members of an Orange County group concerned about child molestation cases. Soden said at the time that he thought 12 years was an appropriate sentence because the Maldonados were young and had good records. Also, they had received a favorable probation report with much support from family members.