O.C. Man Gets Nearly 10 Years in Prison After Kidnapping Woman, Carving His Name on Her Chest
A Santa Ana man who carved his name on a woman’s chest was sentenced to nearly a decade in state prison on Friday.
Sergio Mendoza is shown in a booking photo provided to the Los Angeles Times by Santa Ana police in 2015.
Sergio Joaquin Mendoza, 27, kidnapped, threatened and physically harmed a woman he was in a “romantic relationship” with in 2015, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Over the course of four days in March 2015, he repeatedly punched the unidentified victim, forced her to sit in his car while he worked and threatened her if she tried to leave the vehicle.
Then, two days after that ordeal, he told the victim “he would let her leave if she allowed him to carve his name onto her chest,” the DA’s office said in a news release.
He used a razor blade to write his first name on her chest.
He drove her around, again threatening her with more violence if she left the vehicle, punched her and head-butted her, and tried to strangle her.
Nonetheless, the victim was able to escape, run into a local business and call police.
Mendoza was arrested three days after the woman escaped.
On March 9 of this year, he was convicted of felony kidnapping, criminal threats, false imprisonment, and two counts of domestic battery with corporal injury. He was also found guilty of misdemeanor false imprisonment.
An Orange County judge sentenced him to nine years and eight months in state prison. When he was arraigned in 2015, the DA’s office said he faced a maximum sentence of 11 years and eight months.