More than six years after they arrested the wrong man for beating and raping a 94-year-old woman, Palo Alto police believe they have now arrested the right one.
Roberto Cruz Recendes, 40, of Mexico is expected to be arraigned this afternoon in a Palo Alto courthouse, the Mercury News has learned.
Recendes, who was extradited from his native country back to Palo Alto, will be charged with sexual penetration against a victim's will by force and causing great bodily harm to an elderly person. Palo Alto police took custody of him in Los Angeles.
The woman will never know her alleged attacker was caught. She has since died.
It was possibly the culmination of one of the most controversial Peninsula criminal cases in recent history.
On May 10, 2002, the elderly woman was beaten and sexually assaulted in the darkness of her assisted-living apartment just off El Camino Real in Palo Alto.
Police, on the strength of what they felt were incriminating admissions and the poor alibi of drunken blackout, arrested Jorge Hernandez - a recent Gunn High School graduate with a baby face and no criminal record.
But on August 9, 2002, on the verge of a preliminary hearing, prosecutors dropped all charges against the 18-year-old saying DNA evidence showed that he didn't do it.
Recendes was convicted of domestic violence in Santa Clara County and sent to state prison in 2004, court documents said. He remains on parole for that crime, according to the state Department of Corrections, and has an active arrest warrant.
Palo Alto police arrest man in 2002 rape of 94-year-old woman - Inside Bay Area
This animal should be sentenced to death.
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