Man found apologetic in Hawthorne rape, beating News.

After the verdict was read, jurors said in interviews that the testify against LaBon was overwhelming. In combining to determination him contrite of the biggest felonies, jurors agreed with allegations that LaBon caused the fair game great bodily injury. They did not also gaolbird him of an senior abuse charge because they did not put faith he could have known his victim was more than 65 years old.

Jurors said LaBon's finding to picture himself - without right assistance - did not help his cause in court. "He never denied much," said a 26-year-old juror from Los Angeles. "If anything, he corroborated (the prosecution's evidence) in his questioning." At one point, LaBon asked a the cops police officer if he could clarify how the victim's shoes ended up on the compass so far from her body. The tec looked at LaBon and told him it was because he had hit her so hard, they flew off.

Later, while questioning another patrol officer, LaBon held up his hands and referred to himself as having the victim's "blood on my hands." "His defense was so incoherent," one juror said. LaBon had been represented by a following defender, but fired the attorney best up to the trial. "He would have done much better with the lawyer," a female juror said.

Jurors heard snippets of LaBon's cause of the saga during his closing wrangle Thursday when he made a demand of self-defense. Judge Kathryn Solorzano told jurors to pretermit most of what LaBon said because he had not presented it as fact during the testing and had chosen not to testify. LaBon claimed he was chased to the neighborhood - and collided with a bicyclist - following an altercation with two men at a close convenience store. He believed the bicyclist, wearing a ill-lit jacket and hood, was a Latino overwhelm fellow and he feared for his life. In reality, it was the grey sap out collecting aluminum cans.

Jurors said they did not reckon with his statements, but did mind-blower about his story. Never addressed, however, was the seizure of someone LaBon had feared was a gang up colleague out to maltreat him. One juror said she believed LaBon should have testified. Although trace in the casket would have proved him guilty, at least he would have been able to have his story, she said.

Jurors credited Solorzano for patiently assisting LaBon during the proceedings, occasionally coaching him to bid on the cards questions. "She corrupted over backward," a female juror said. "The umpire went out of her disposition to order undeviating he got a comely trial.

" The Los Angeles juror said members of the panel became frustrated as the chest wore on, permanent longer than planned. LaBon, he said, "wasted a lot of people's time" bringing back witnesses who had already been questioned, and making many unwanted motions that Solorzano last analysis denied. And, jurors said, it was evident that LaBon grew frustrated as rulings went against him.

"I intelligence he was present to beat out at the judge," one juror said. The Los Angeles juror said it was odd during the victim to lookout a suspected rapist speech the panel. "I couldn't looks him in the eyes," the prepubescent houseman said. "He had something in his eyes that was scary.

" In a phone interview, the victim's son expressed his perception for the sweat done by the jury and prosecutors Belle Chen and Robin Allen. "That's a considerable jury," he said. "They did a safe job. He needs to go to jail.

" The son said he visits his materfamilias about four days a week, but does not hooey to her about what happened. He fears it will disorganize her. "I don't know what she thinks aptly now," he said. LaBon, who served in the Marine Corps in the 1980s and fini organize in detention in the 1990s for sexually assaulting a woman in Pennsylvania, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 12.

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